Eight members of family stuck inside lift for 2 hours in Greater Noida, rescued

NOIDA: The fire brigade on Wednesday night rescued eight members of a family — including three minors, three adults, and two senior citizens — who were stuck inside the lift of a residential building in UP's Greater Noida Society for nearly two hours.
The lift door had to be cut open with a hydraulic cutter to rescue them.
To maintain the oxygen supply, residents managed to fix a brick in between the doors of the lift.
The incident took place around 9.30pm while the fire department was informed about an hour later around 10:35pm.
Although the lift was initially bought from the Kone company, Global Lift was responsible for its maintenance.
The maintenance company maintained that it was not a technical fault; rather the lift was overloaded and had crossed the 500kg load.

The family members were identified as Ravindra Pal Singh (66), Kusum Singh (65), Dushyant Pratap Singh (39), Astha Singh (32), Saksham Singh (8), Ena Singh (3), Om Vishwas Singh (23), Aditya Singh (17).
The incident happened in the Golf Gardenia Society in sector Alpha 2, Greater Noida.
"We boarded the lift at 9:30pm from the ground floor to reach the first floor. But instead of going upwards, the lift went down to the basement and got stuck. Though the light and fans inside the lift were working inside the lift, it was suffocating. It was difficult to contact anyone since the phone networks were not working. But in between, we got signals and I contacted the maintenance team. Following this the society's electricians and residents reached the spot within 15 minutes," said Dushyant Pratap Singh.
Although the electrician of the society was coordinating with the lift maintenance team over call on how to open the lift, they were not able to rescue the family, after which the fire brigade team was called for help.
"It's not the first incident that has taken place in society. Few days back, four children were also stuck in tower A of the society. They were rescued after 20 minutes. The RWA of the society is not working properly. As some of them no longer live in the society," added Dushyant.
Karan Bhambri, vice president of the RWA, maintained that the incident which occurred in the society is a rare one.
It happened because the lift was overloaded.
"We had a detailed discussion with the lift engineer. The engineer said that the lift went down as it was overloaded. What happened yesterday was a rare incident."
Arvind Kumar, from the lift maintenance company, said that last month only lift maintenance was done and also new buttons were placed.
"It is mentioned that only 10 passengers within 500 kg weight can board the lift at a time. However, in this case the lift was overloaded."
Pradeep Kumar Chuabey, chief fire officer, Gautam Budh Nagar, said that the fire department received the call about the incident at around 10.30pm.
"The information was routed to the fire department after a resident dialed 112 for emergency services. Immediately, a team of fire safety personnel rushed to the spot. The lift was stuck in the basement of the society and its doors were cut open using hydraulic cutting equipment by the fire department officials. Eight people stuck on the lift were rescued by the personnel, of which the youngest child was three years old and the oldest person was 66 years old," said the officer.
He added that preliminary investigation found that the lift's machinery had malfunctioned.
"The lift had a free fall down to the basement from the ground floor. Such cases are usually seen when there is an interruption in electricity supply. However in this case, the electricity supply was on and the lift had malfunctioned," he said.
Police officials said that no complaint was received in the matter by the residents.
"A team from Beta-2 police station had also reached the society after information was received on Dial112 at around 10.30pm. The eight members of the family were rescued safely with the help of fire department officials. We have not received any complaint in the matter," Arvind Kumar, assistant commissioner of police-1, Greater Noida, said.