Presence of mind of Avesh Chichkar, a 25 year old IT professional and a Cricket coach, helped save lives of at least 20 people of B-wing. He had just come back home from the gym at around 6 p.m. on the fateful August 24. After reaching the building Tarique Garden in Mahad at around 6 p.m., he noticed one of the pillars of the building at the parking lot was damaged. He went to his home at the fifth floor and sat for eating snacks on the dining table in the kitchen.
Watch | 5-storey building in Mumbai Raigad district's Mahad collapses
“The fridge was just besides the place where I was seated to have my snacks. I sensed a sudden movement of the fridge and felt as if it went down into a depression. I asked my mother who was cooking, if she felt anything and she answered in negative. Yet I felt there was something wrong and a disaster was waiting to happen and I asked my family - parents and a brother - to leave the house immediately. I did anticipate something of this magnitude was waiting to happen though,” Mr. Chichkar said.
While going down from the fifth floor, Mr .Chichkar raised an alarm and knocked on each flat of B-wing asking to vacate the house. The five-storeyed society had four flats in each floor in both wings. “We all reached down the parking lot and clicked a photo of the pillar that was damaged and suddenly we heard a sound and saw another pillar breaking. That’s when we all ran to the nearby Bismillah Complex. Within a minute after reaching the nearby complex, we saw Tarique Garden collapsing like a pack of cards,” Mr. Chichkar said.
While they were waiting at the parking lot, Naveed Duste (32) who was an electrician had come to the building for some work, rushed to first floor wherein a family he knows resided. Mr. Duste rushed there to save a family, which he successfully did but ended up damaging both his legs. Currently, he is battling for life at Apollo hospital in Navi Mumbai. Hearing all the chaos in the building, Mr. Chichkar’s younger brother Taha (22) who was fishing at a pond besides rushed to the building and went to check on his family in his flat at the fifth floor. The flat was closed as they had already ran to safety at Bismillah Complex. While he was coming down from fifth floor, he saw Mehrunisa Kazi (60) going down from third floor and from second floor, he saw her husband Abdul Hamid Kazi with his five year old grandson going down. Taha took the child and rushed down and after he reached down, within seconds the building collapsed. Later during the rescue operation, Mr. Kazi’s body was recovered while Ms. Kazi was found alive after close to 26 hours of the collapse.
After around 40 hours of rescue operation, 16 bodies were found while two people were found alive beneath the rubbles. A total of nine of them have been injured in the collapse. The first causality of the collapse was Sayyed Hameed Sameer (45), who was resident of an adjoining building and had got hurt after debris hit him. He died on the way to hospital due to heart attack. The remaining 15 deceased were extricated from the rubble by NDRF who reached the spot on 1.10 a.m. of August 25 till August 26 morning. The deceased have been identified as Adil Haseem Shaikhnag (14), Roshanbi Dawoodkhan Deshmukh (56), Nauseen Nadeem Bangi (30), Mateen Mukadam (45), Fateem Shaukat Alsulkar (60), Naveed Jamane (30), Ismat Haseem Shaikhnag (38), Fatima Ansari (43), Shaukat Adam Alsulkar (50), Altamash Ballari (35), Ayesha Nauseen Bangi (7), Rukiya Nauseen Bangi (2), Abdul Hameed Kazi (58), Habeeba Dawood Hazware (80) and Kamrunisa Ansari (63). The injured in the collapse are Nameera Shaukat Alsurkar (19), Santosh Sahani (24), Fareeda Riyaz Pore, Jayprakash Kumar (24), Deepak Kumar (21), Swapnil Pramod Shirke (23), Naveed Hameed Duste (32) and the two who were found alive beneath the rubbles- Mohammad Nauseen Bangi (4) and Mehrunisa Abdul Hameed Kazi (60).
After the rescue operation, the survivors rushed to the spot in search of their belongings. “If nothing else, we wanted to get our important documents. Passports, ATM cards, licenses, property papers but there was absolutely nothing. Some managed to get hold of license and passport and most of them are still looking to get hold of something valuable. The rains made it worse, it’s now all mud everywhere. We do not know from where and how we can start our lives back as everything we had is now gone,” Mr. Chichkar said.
Meanwhile, Mahad police has arrested RCC Contractor of the building, Bahubali Dhamane from Navi Mumbai on Wednesday in the early hours and produced him before Mangaon court which has remanded him to police custody till August 30.