Mukherjee Nagar fire in Delhi: Shopkeepers, auto drivers among first responders

By the end of the dramatic rescue, two dozen students who fell while rappelling down the building survived serious injuries

As soon as news broke of a fire on the ground floor of a four-storey building in Mukherjee Nagar, the roughly 250 students studying at the Gurukul SSC coaching centre, located in the basement of the building, ran to safety. However, they knew that those studying on the upper storeys of the building would not be able to escape that easily.

Crowd outside the building in Mukherjee Nagar on Thursday. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

Smoke was quickly engulfing the building, scores of other students were trapped on the upper floors, and the firefighters were yet to reach the spot.

As panic-struck students from above began a desperate attempt to escape the building by rappelling down a power cable and a water pipeline, those who managed to escape started to lay their personal belongings on the ground. “The only way to save lives was to cushion their fall,” said Lovepreet Singh, one of the students who got out early.

At the same time, some students trapped on the upper floors started throwing their bags down, in an attempt to create a soft landing to break their fall.

Others around the site of the fire also pitched in — a tent house owner released over two dozen mattresses, and a garbage collector gave three large sacks of empty plastic bottles he had collected from the local market.

“I knew that empty plastic bottles were not the softest items around, but that was better than the hard surface,” said Sohan Lal, the garbage picker.

A few local auto drivers also helped out. “We arranged a few thick ropes from our tempo driver friends and got them thrown to the students on the upper floors,” said Ranjeet Singh, an auto driver.

By the end of the dramatic rescue, at least two dozen students who fell while rappelling down the building survived serious injuries due to the cushion provided by the pile of bags, mattresses, and sacks of bottles.

The students who were able to get out early, meanwhile, carried fire extinguishers in their hands and ran inside the building to douse the flames.

“We were barely able to survive inside due to the thick smoke. The floor was also getting heated and there were students crying inside about losing their footwear in the stampede and their legs burning,” said Anish Verma, a student.

The lone narrow staircase barely had enough space for two students to pass through at the same time but that did not deter them. They arranged for hammers from to be thrown upstairs to break the iron meshes around the windows. “From below, we shouted to urge them to break as many window panes as possible so that the smoke could escape,” said another student, Ajay Dixit. Others persuaded the dangling students to hold on and guided them about the obstacles on their path while sliding down.

Despite all the cushioning, every other fall required the victims to be moved to hospitals. It was these students who carried them in their arms to the nearest ambulance.

“This successful rescue couldn’t have been possible without the active support and help from other students and all stakeholders there,” said Jitendra Meena, deputy commissioner of police (northwest).