I have lost everything, says survivor

It was slightly before 9 pm when Prem Babu and his wife Bina Devi rushed downstairs on seeing cracks in their room following a loud sound.

“We thought it was an earthquake and rushed to the landlord’s flat to check the television,” says the 51-year-old. His children were in their flat on the fifth floor.
Minutes later, there was an “explosion”; they yelled from the cramped staircase and soon lay on the floor in the dark. While Prem Babu managed to survive, he lost his wife and nine-year-old daughter Akanksha in the building collapse in west Delhi’s Vishnu Garden.

Prem Babu is now admitted in the Delhi-government-run Guru Gobind Hospital and has suffered severe leg injuries. “I don’t know how my life will be once discharged from here. I have lost everything,” says the survivor helping his youngest of seven children to a spoon of rice. His two other children have been referred to the state government’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital. He mumbles he doesn’t know exactly “how they are”.
In the hospital’s next bed, Shyam Pal recounts the 15-20 minutes he remained trapped in the debris on Saturday night seemed like a “never-ending” period. Lal’s wife died in the collapse.

“I paid a rent of Rs 3,000 for a room, which five of us shared, on the third floor. I have been staying here for three years now. We knew the building was weak but little realised how everything will end,” says Pal, who ekes out his living as a rickshaw-puller.
At some distance away in Vishnu Garden, the cranes worked to remove the debris. A dupatta and As the gas cylinder, pressure cookers, bundles of clothes left for ironing and parts of a mixer-grinder were scooped out, a neighbour sighed saying “how the lives were cut short”. Another woman pointed out at the dupatta and a shirt hanging from the remains of a fan.

Locals said they were confused on hearing the explosion-like sound. “We were standing nearby when we heard the sound. First we thought it was an earthquake, but then we saw the ruins,” says Akashdeep, a local.

A few others spotted the sparks on overhead cable wires as soon the building collapsed. “The living conditions are so poor. There could have been a major fire with loose overhead cables,” says Rani Kaur.   

The five-strorey building housed two families in each floor. With the weekend coinciding with the festival of Eid, most families had gone to visit their native places. There were around 20-25 people in the building at the time of the incident, according to locals. “On any other day, the number of casualties would have gone higher,” says Sattar Ali, another local.

Locals blamed the the AAP-led government and Bharatiya Janata Party-run municipal corporation for passing the buck without trying to resolve the problems of illegal construction and poor drainage system in the area.