SHADES OF SOS: RESIDENTS, FIREMEN & ARMY

 

Bamboo sticks, bricks, ropes and bare hands - these were some of the tools with which people of the area started the rescue operation and carried on for over an hour.

Labourers, shopkeepers and residents of the Posta neighbourhood were among the first to start rescuing people from under the collapsed flyover before the fire brigade and the disaster management group took over.

Till about 1.30pm, these men tried to lift multi-tonne iron structures with bare hands or move them by using bamboo sticks as levers and jacks and pull out bodies from under the rubble.

It worked in a few cases, as with Uber driver Anil Sonkar, who was pulled out of his car by his friends.

But on most occasions, the move backfired, pushing people and vehicles further inside the debris.

"We could not just stand and watch people die... so, we tried to help as much as we could," said Vikas Dayani, a resident of the area.

"Since we did not have the right equipment we could not pull out many from under the bridge."

Dayani and a group of other men had tried to bring out the helper of a truck.

The helper's head was stuck between the roof of the truck and the driver's seat, Dayani said. He could cry for help but could not move.

"We gave him water... he even called up his family... but we could not pull him out. Any attempt to shift him would have brought down the entire structure, crushing him under its weight," said Govind Rai, another rescuer.

The rescuers waited for the police teams to arrive but he breathed his last in half an hour.

At least 100 men from the disaster management group, armed with gas cutters, clip cutters and strong ropes, reached the scene of disaster a little after 1.30pm. Two cranes arrived around 2pm.

The gas cutters were used to cut the iron structures and the cranes to lift them as people of the area and those from the disaster management group went down on their knees to see if anyone was trapped underneath.

People pulled out a taxi driver, a rickshawpuller and a woman with their bare hands when one of the structures was lifted. They were all dead.

But by that time, the crowd had swelled with many reaching the site just to see the destruction and shoot pictures on their cellphones.

The police failed to control the crowd as many stepped on the collapsed portion to get a better view.

After some time, 100 CRPF men - in town for the polls - arrived at the site and started dispersing the crowd.

They, along with 200-odd men of the National Disaster Response Force, took charge of the rescue efforts till the army came in and took control of the entire operation.

At least 250 armymen came marching through Rabindra Sarani around 3pm carrying shovels, heavy-duty gas cutters, iron chains, drilling machines, sledgehammers and long chisels.

Till the arrival of the army, the rescuers had concentrated on those stuck under the beams.

When the army arrived, rumours started doing the rounds that a minibus, a school bus and three cars were trapped under the portion of the collapsed flyover that had been concretised on Wednesday.

Armymen began the operation by hammering and digging through the concrete to expose the iron mesh and cut it using clippers and gas cutters and then cranes pulling it up.

A few of the armymen went inside the debris through a hole created by cutting open an iron mesh, but could not find anyone trapped inside. The army continued the rescue work till late in the night, pulling out bodies from under iron structures every now and then.

"We will work till we clear the entire mess and find each and everyone trapped inside," an army officer said.