M.N. Reddi, Director-General of Police, Fire and Emergency Services, spoke to The Hindu about the rescue efforts at the site of the building collapse in Dharwad, which has so far claimed 12 lives. Excerpts of the interview:
In a preliminary assessment, what led to the collapse of the under-construction building?
Obviously, structural instability led to the collapse. But what caused structural instability — design flaws, quality issues, implementation issues or negligence — is a matter of the magisterial inquiry, which I shouldn’t be prejudging.
How many more are suspected to be trapped under the debris, and what are their chances of survival?
From missing reports, we estimate at least 15 more are trapped under the debris. I hope we rescue them alive; I wouldn’t like to speculate on their chances of survival. People were rescued after seven days in a collapse in Ballari and after four days in the infamous Gangaram Building collapse in Bengaluru. While we have recovered a total of five bodies, we also rescued two persons alive on Thursday. Rescuers are treading with extreme caution, with an aim to rescue as many people as possible alive.
What are the challenges you have been facing?
It’s the collapse of a multi-storeyed building which has created a multilayered concrete wreckage, with multiple slabs, columns and beams falling upon each other. The biggest challenge has been victim location for which we and NDRF team used canine squads and victim-location cameras. But human intervention is key — our men have crawled through small spaces as narrow as two feet to identify people. The next challenge is how to reach them. We are treading very cautiously so that our rescue operations should not lead to minor collapses causing further threat to life. Our officers along with the NDRF team have been working for over 48 hours without even a wink, and risking their lives while getting under the debris. We are happy to have saved nearly 61 people.
Are our Tier-2 cities equipped to handle such crises? How can you equip them further?
Firemen are also rescuers and every taluk has firestations. But there is a need to build finer technical expertise and equipment in Tier-2 cities to handle urban challenges.
We flew a team of trained officials in a special flight from Bengaluru for the rescue efforts, as a building collapse of this sort needs engineering analysis and constant re-evaluation. The SDRF teams are proposed to be stationed in Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Belagavi, and Kalaburagi, but are yet to become fully operational, which we need to fast track.