New Delhi, Sep 7 (PTI) When the five-storey building in Satya Niketan came crashing down on Sunday afternoon, a Blinkit ambulance booked via the quick-commerce company’s app reached the site within minutes. Its paramedics, carrying oxygen cylinders and medical equipment, joined the locals in the rescue operation, racing to pull people from the debris.
The narrow lane near Delhi University’s South Campus quickly turned into a frantic rescue zone, with students, residents, shopkeepers and emergency workers treating the injured and helping move the rubble, some using their bare hands.
A PCR call regarding the collapse was received at the South Campus police station at 1.34 pm, and paramedics from the Blinkit ambulance — the first to arrive at the scene according to a local — had joined the rescue operation by around 1.45 pm as the efforts gathered pace.
For Ritik, a first-year BA Political Science student from Bihar, the afternoon changed in an instant when the building collapsed, sending a cloud of dust and smoke through the narrow lane and leaving people scrambling to find those trapped underneath.
“Amid the confusion, I called for a Blinkit ambulance at around 1.30 pm, and it reached the spot within minutes. Its paramedics began tending to the injured. They gave oxygen to people who needed it and first aid to the injured,” Ritik told PTI.
The first ambulance was soon joined by more as a Blinkit staff member involved in the response alerted ambulances stationed at different locations across Delhi and asked them to head towards Satya Niketan.
“Once our first ambulance reached, we started calling in the others. We have ambulances in different parts of Delhi, so we brought them in one by one,” the staffer said.
Around nine more Blinkit ambulances reached the site over the next one-and-a-half hours, with about 27 employees eventually involved in the response, he said.
Blinkit provides a free emergency ambulance service in select parts of Delhi-NCR.
But the ambulances were only one part of a rescue effort that quickly spilt into the street.
With the rubble covering the building and its occupants, people from the neighbourhood began clearing whatever they could with their bare hands. Students and locals formed a human chain to move pieces of rubble away from the site, while others helped carry the injured and kept people away from dangerous sections of the collapsed structure.
The Blinkit team also joined the effort when the medical equipment could not help.
“We did whatever we could with the people we had. We were moving slabs by hand, checking the debris and seeing if there was someone underneath. The locals were doing the same thing. Everyone was trying to help,” another staff member said.
He described the rescue as a collective effort involving people with different skills and resources.
“Everyone was helping in their own way. We had medical equipment and manpower, the locals knew the place and were already there, and the rescue agencies had the equipment needed for the deeper operation. Everybody had a role to play,” he said.
The ambulance crew treated several people injured in and around the collapse. Those requiring hospitalisation were shifted to the medical facilities, while others were moved to safer areas after receiving basic treatment.
“There was a fruit seller who had hurt his leg, and there were shopkeepers who were standing nearby and got injured. We treated them and moved them away from the debris. Some needed to go to the hospital, while others just needed to be taken out of the immediate area,” another Blinkit staff member said.
Inside the ambulances, oxygen support and basic medical care were provided to those who needed it while they were being taken to the hospital.
“Whenever someone needed oxygen, we gave it. We checked them, gave whatever basic treatment was possible and then shifted them to the hospital. Some people were alive when they were brought out and needed immediate support,” he said.
By the time specialised rescue teams took charge of the more difficult extraction work, the site had become a convergence point for people who had arrived for entirely different reasons — students who lived nearby, residents familiar with the building, shopkeepers from the lane and emergency workers who had been called in from across the city.
Students said the first few hours were marked by confusion, but also by people instinctively stepping forward to help.
“Everyone was just trying to do something. Some people were removing the debris, some were helping the injured, some were carrying people. Nobody was really standing and waiting,” a second-year student said.
The death toll in the collapse rose to seven on Monday as the search and rescue operation entered its second day. Twelve people have so far been pulled out from the debris.
The National Disaster Response Force said it did not have a specific figure for the number of people who could have been trapped inside the building. The rescue operation, involving multiple agencies, was expected to continue till late Monday.
AIIMS said 11 patients had been received at the JPN Apex Trauma Centre following the collapse. Five were brought dead, while another patient in critical condition later succumbed to injuries. Three patients remain admitted and under treatment; one underwent limb surgery, and another was discharged after observation.
The around 30-year-old five-storey building, which housed a boys’ paying guest accommodation, collapsed while repair work was under way.
Police have registered a case against the building owner and others, while a magisterial inquiry has been ordered. The owner, Hariram, was apprehended from Rajasthan’s Bhiwadi on Monday. PTI MSJ RHL
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