A girl injured in the collapse. Picture by Santosh Ghosh

Calcutta, May 4: Eleven people, including seven children, were crushed to death and five injured after a 25-foot-high wall of an abandoned warehouse collapsed in southwest Calcutta this evening.

Half an hour after a nor?wester lashed the city and its neighbourhood, a 100-foot stretch of the wall collapsed shortly after 6 pm in Alif Nagar, West Port area, trapping many residents of an adjacent slum.

?I heard a huge rumble, like the sound of thunder, but soon there were shrieks and shouts for help. I ran out of the house in the blinding rain only to be greeted by the ghastly sight,? recalled Sheikh Alam, a tea-stall owner.

?I began looking for my wife and children, who were fortunately safe. Many people had by then rushed out of their homes to help those trapped under the rubble,? he said.

?But it was impossible to pull anybody out just by ourselves. People were begging for help, many were crying. Some of the children were not moving at all,? added Mohammed Jamshed, a local youth. Some 200 people live in the slum.

About half an hour later, the fire brigade arrived. Soon, bodies were pulled out one after the other. All the victims, including three women, and the injured were rushed to SSKM Hospital.

?At that time we didn?t know how many had died,? said a senior fire brigade officer. ?It was only after we reached the hospital that we realised the extent of the tragedy.?

?I was about to leave when I found that several persons injured in a wall collapse had been brought in. We examined all of them and realised that eleven were already dead,? Santanu Tripathi, hospital superintendent, said.

?We have admitted five injured persons in the emergency ward. They are all critical. As for the dead, they were so badly mangled that most of them could not be identified even by their neighbours,? the superintendent added.

At the hospital, 10-year-old Ruksana, her hair dishevelled and face full of scratches, clung to father Sheikh Moin, who was weeping inconsolably.

Her eyes still wide at the horror of what she had seen, the child described the tragedy. ?It had started raining, and I wanted to get drenched. Without telling my mother, I slipped out of home. Suddenly there was a loud noise.

?Turning round, I could see the wall collapsing. I knew that my elder sister Sayeeda was there, and ran to look for my mother. But it was too late. My sister was already dead.?

Moin, a rickshaw-puller, had set off for home as the nor?wester started.

?I reached home too late,? he wailed. ?I tried everything, but couldn?t save my daughter.?