Lending a hand: Local heroes emerge amid chaos, clear debris for rescuers to reach site
Delhi Fire Service and National Disaster Relief Force both left their vehicles at a distance and carried firefighting equipment on foot to the burning building. But the local residents stepped up, clearing rubble with bare hands, clearing the debris through human chains and working relentlessly to reach the trapped people.
A fire officer said that the biggest challenge was removing the debris for heavy vehicles to access the site.
"We relied on carts used by scrap collectors to clear the rubble. It was a slow process since the carts could carry only small loads," he said. Machines couldn't be used effectively due to the limited space and the fire vehicles were parked at a distance, requiring people to manually bring any required equipment.
An NDRF personnel said, "If the lanes were wider, the rescue operation could have been faster. But only four people could enter the debris-covered lane, which slowed the process."
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Locals, however, played a critical role in the rescue efforts. When the building collapsed with a loud noise, they rushed to the site and began pulling people out from under the rubble before the official rescuers arrived. Mohammad Savesh, 28, who was sleeping when the collapse occurred, was woken up by the noise and immediately rushed to the site. "We rescued as many people as we could and dug into the remains with our bare hands," he said.
To speed up debris removal, residents formed a human chain, passing rubble from one person to the next, which helped create an efficient and continuous system to clear the disaster site. Another resident, Saqib, said that when he arrived, he saw several people trapped under the debris. "Without wasting any time, we started removing the broken concrete and bricks by hand to rescue those buried beneath," he recounted.
For many residents, the incident felt like an earthquake. Mehr-un-Nisa, an elderly woman who has lived in the area for decades, said, "We felt the ground shake as though it was an earthquake. When we ran outside, we saw that a house had completely collapsed under the debris." Mohammad Rafi, another local resident, said, "We heard a loud, startling sound and saw that the pillar at the corner of the lane had given way — the entire building had collapsed on top of it.
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According to the locals, the collapsed structure had an L-shaped layout and was mainly supported on one side. This unbalanced design, combined with poor load distribution and a weak foundation, made the building particularly vulnerable to collapse. They also alleged that the use of substandard construction materials had led to chronic seepage problems in buildings throughout the area. Over time, this had weakened the structures, making them highly susceptible to collapse even during minor tremors or shifts in the ground.
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