Survivors and kin of victims at the spot. (Kevin Dsouza)
For hours after the Siddhi Sai Co-operative Housing Society collapsed Tuesday morning, Darshan Doshi (23) kept talking to his father, Rajesh (57), on his cellphone.
Stuck under the debris, Rajesh kept his son informed that he was ‘safe’. Rajesh was asleep when the building started to crumble. He was lying in bed when a portion of a wall fell on his leg. Under the rubble for nearly nine hours, rescue workers pulled Rajesh out of the debris; however, his legs remained trapped. A team of doctors rushed to his rescue soon after and put him on a drip. Ten hours later, the challenge was narrowed to saving Rajesh’s legs. He, however, grew weaker as he lay on a stretcher, his legs remaining crushed under the wall.
The Doshis, who had been living in the building for the past five years, were planning to shift to another home in Ghatkopar’s Cama Road locality soon. “Most of our relatives and friends live in that locality, which is why we were planning to shift. We bought this home because our old building in Cama lane went under redevelopment. I wish we could have shifted two months ago,” said Darshan, who works with a stockbroking firm.
At least 12 people were killed after the four-storey building in the Damodar Park area in Ghatkopar (West) was reduced to a heap of rubble. Home to 11 families, the almost 40-year-old structure gave way allegedly on account of illegal alterations made on the ground floor. Read: Ghatkopar building collapse: At least two feared trapped, two ‘missing’ Click here
Neeraj Gandhi (45), his mother Amita Gandhi (70) and their cook Prajna Ben (50) stepped out of the building minutes before it was about to collapse. But while the Gandhis got out, Ben went back to look for her purse. Soon after she re-entered the structure it crumbled. Four hours later, however, the fire brigade rescued Ben, who was rushed Shanti Niketan hospital where she is recuperating. “I thought I was dead when the building collapsed. I could not breathe, I started chanting Lord Krishna’s name, I kept doing it. Suddenly I heard a huge noise and got a feeling that help had arrived and started screaming for help. I was rescued thereafter,” said Ben.
Thirteen-year-old Rutvi Shah, a student of Class IX, would have been at school when the building collapsed. Unfortunately, she stayed home on Tuesday to complete her school assignment. While Rutvi’s parents Dharmishtha and Pritesh survived the mishap, her grandmother Ranjanben got stuck in the staircase. Her body was recovered in the afternoon. Hours later, Rutvi’s body was also pulled out by rescue workers.
The family of 75-year-old Mansukhbhai Gajjar, a resident of Jawahar Nagar and a carpenter by profession, was left in a state of shock. Gajjar had gone to Siddhi Sai Co-operative Housing Society to take measurements for a job. His visit to the building would have taken no longer than 10 minutes but things took a fatal turn and Gajjar became one of the 12 victims of the collapse. Read: Ghatkopar building collapse: Three-month-old girl and one-year-old boy among the dead. Click here
Gajjar’s family members including his wife, his niece and brother-in-law, said he had gone to one of the flats on the third floor and was supposed to come back home. His wife Meenaben Gajjar said, “He was supposed to go to Ahmedabad in two days to meet his daughters. He had said he would finish his work and call me back. But when he didn’t call for a while, I tried to call him but his phone was unavailable. A little later, my friend called to tell me that the building he had gone to had collapsed.”
While some grieved the loss of family members, others came to retrieve whatever was left of their belongings. Neeraj Gandhi claimed that he could not trace a cupboard. Later he told fire brigade and police that he had kept over Rs 3 lakh in the cupboard. “We have survived but our dreams are lot. We don’t know what we will do now. This all because of Shitap Hospital (on the ground floor),” he said.
