Sunita and her husband Arun were at home at Chintels Paradiso society when a large portion of the 6th floor collapsed into their first floor flat on Thursday. PTI A day after the body of Sunita Srivastava (55) was pulled out from the debris after a complex retrieval process, her family and relatives on Sunday said they had faint hope that she would survive in the initial hours when the rescue operations started on Thursday.
On February 10 evening, a large portion of the sixth floor collapsed all the way to the first floor at Chintels Paradiso society’s tower D in Sector 109. Sunita, one of the two women to die in the incident, stayed on the first floor. Her husband, Arun Srivastava (60), a bureaucrat, was trapped under the debris and was rescued after a 16-hour operation. He was rushed to a private hospital in Gurgaon and shifted to ICU for observation.
“We knew that chances of survival are slim, but we were holding on to some hope. There is always hope. The next day, we learnt that she had passed away, and a rescue team was working to retrieve her body,” said Sunita’s cousin Colonel A K Sinha.
The rescue teams, comprising the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, fire department and district administration teams, had procured cribs used in railways to stabilise the basement, so they could remove the debris safely and retrieve her body on Saturday.
Her brother, Neeraj Sinha, said that he heard of the collapse 10 minutes after it occurred on Thursday from his second sister, Sujata, who was also in the flat with the couple when the incident took place.
“She had just arrived from Chicago. My brother-in-law Arun had picked her up from the airport and they had reached the house a few minutes before the collapse. She survived as she was in the washroom and was quickly rescued. Arun and Sunita were in the dining room and were trapped underneath the rubble,” said Sinha. He said Sunita was a home maker.
The family said that through Thursday night and Friday afternoon, while rescuers were trying to rescue Arun Srivastava, whose lower half of the body was trapped underneath the debris, they received updates from rescuers about his health, which was reassuring amid the tragedy.
“While the rescue was on, I managed to speak to him through an official. He was composed and hopeful and mentioned that rescuers were making their best efforts to rescue him. He told me ‘bhaiyya, everything is fine’ at the time,” said Col Sinha.
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