Satya Niketan collapse: Victims called for help from under the rubble

The search and rescue operation at the Satya Niketan site, where a five-storey collapsed Sunday afternoon, was encapsulated in an 11-second video of a student — a terrified expression on his face — pinned under several layers of rubble that was shared online. As night fell, many were still feared trapped under the remains of the building, but officials could not be sure of the exact numbers.

At least five people, including two labourers, had been confirmed dead, as of midnight. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

On Sunday, around 1.30pm, the structure of a boys paying guest (PG) accommodation in south-west Delhi is suspected to have failed as a result of construction work that had been ongoing either in the basement or on the ground floor, officials said. At least five people, including a student and a labourer, had been confirmed dead, as of midnight.

But search operations were complicated by the fact that authorities could not be sure about how many people were inside the building when it came down. Locals claim at least 20 students were inside and a few labourers had been sitting outside.

Several students who were trapped were identified after they started calling their friends outside for help. The student in this video was identified by his friends as 19-year-old Aditya Kumar, who is enrolled at a college on Delhi University’s south campus. He belongs to Patna, Bihar.

Jatin Chaudhary, 22, National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) member who knew Aditya said, “There was also a small voice note in which we could only hear a call for help.”

Kumar was pulled out of the debris around 6pm. AIIMS Trauma Centre confirmed that he had been admitted to the hospital and was stable. “The doctors are saying that he needs a CT scan but is stable at this point,” his sister, Ankita, told HT.

Neeraj Bawa too called his friends, according to 21-year Anmol Yadav. “We were on our way to the PG when he called and said, ‘please save me or I’ll die’. He shared his live location with us, we would have located him, but the police didn’t allow us to go near the building.

Bawa was among the first who was pulled out and taken to AIIMS. “I accompanied him in the ambulance, he was conscious but was barely able to utter a word. His lower body suffered most of the injuries,” Yadav added.

Small lanes, crowds

A National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) official involved in the search and rescue operation said the team was using specialised equipment, including life detectors, to locate and then cut through to those trapped underneath.

NDRF inspector general Narendra Singh Bundela said, “Our teams are cautious while using machines to remove the rubble as lives are at stake. Since multiple floors of the building have collapsed, we are doing the removal of debris layer by layer. Our first priority is to identify and locate victims, stabilise them by giving them oxygen and other requisite support, and rescue them at the earliest. Our teams are using all available resources for cutting and removing the debris. As of now two teams comprising 70 personnel are working,” said Bundela.

The location of the accident site — located in the narrow bylanes of a residential colony — and the large number of people gathered around was making it difficult to move equipment and material in and out of the operation zone.

Initially, this also delayed the arrival of rescue vehicles at the scene, said Delhi Fire Services (DFS) station officer Manoj Mehlawat.

“Rather than waiting for the specialised vehicles, we began cutting, breaking and removing the rubbles using the equipment we keep in our fire tenders.”

An NDRF official said, since the equipment vehicles could not be brought into the lane, they had to “bring the equipment from a considerable distance and it took time”.

‘Felt like a storm’

According to Mohamed Irfan, who is employed at the Stuti Dhaba just 50m from the PG, “There was a very loud sound, like the sound you hear during a storm. I came outside and saw that the building had completely collapsed.”

The 22-year-old said construction work had been going on in its basement. “They had been doing something in the basement for the last 10-15 days.”

17-year-old Yash Chaudhary, who lives nearby, said several locals rushed to the site after the collapse and began trying to help those trapped.

“All of them were unconscious,” he said.

As of midnight, at least 10 had been rescued from the site.

Vijay Kain (33), a local, and former DU students Sahil Sihag and Pankaj Mahla were among the first few at the site. They had begun by clearing the debris manually.

“We hit one concrete slab with hammers and removed the bricks. There were three people under it,” Sahil said.

“There was panic all around as some students trapped inside were making calls and sending recorded videos to their friends, seeking help to be pulled out. I saw a badly injured person trapped under the debris,” said Kunal Gupta, a 31-year-old owner of a local mobile shop.

He further said that an adjacent building began tilting and developed cracks due to the collapse.

Chief minister Rekha Gupta, who visited the site, to take stock of the situation said, the adjacent building had been cleared out of an abundance of precaution and that rescue officials were working on a “war footing”.