New Delhi, Sep 7 (PTI) The building in Delhi’s Satya Niketan had just collapsed. As dust choked the air and cries rose from beneath the rubble, a handful of students rushed to pull the debris with their bare hands, desperately trying to reach those trapped underneath. Just metres away, others stood still, cameras pointed at the wreckage.
In those first, frantic minutes, the divide was stark — seven or eight people were trying to rescue, while dozens watched.
Witnesses recalled that there were 50 to 60 people at the spot when the building collapsed, with more than three-fourths having seen it happen. Yet, in those crucial initial minutes, only a handful stepped in, while others remained on the periphery — watching and filming.
“We were trying to pull out the first person we could see. There was just one person trying to get him out and we needed more hands. You could see people standing around us with their phones. It was difficult to understand why someone would come so close to the site and still choose to record instead of helping,” said Rohan, a Delhi University student who witnessed the collapse.
The decades-old building, which housed a boys’ paying guest accommodation near Delhi University’s South Campus, collapsed around 1.30 pm on Sunday while repair work was under way.
The collapse claimed seven lives.
Rohan recalled the first few minutes were particularly chaotic as nobody knew how many people were trapped inside or whether the structure was stable.
“I saw someone go back and thought he was getting people to help. When he returned, he was recording. We were looking for people who could help us physically, even if it was just pulling someone out. At that point, we needed hands more than anything else,” said Aarav, another DU student who was at the spot.
Other students and eyewitnesses, who did not wish to be named, said the response around them was a mix of panic, confusion and people trying to capture what was happening on their phones.
One of them said the situation became even more frightening when the adjoining building appeared to shake after the collapse.
“The building next to it shook when this one fell. For a moment, everyone thought it might come down too. People started running backwards all at once. There was so much panic that it almost became a stampede,” the student said.
Another eyewitness, who did not wish to be named, said the scene changed within seconds from an ordinary afternoon to complete confusion.
“Some people were trying to get closer to see if they could help, others were running away because they were scared, and many were just standing with their phones out. We did not know what was going to happen next. We were just hoping more people would come and help,” the eyewitness said.
The over 27-hour rescue operation at the collapse site concluded at around 5.10 pm on Monday with seven people dead and five injured. The building owner, Hariram Gupta, his wife and son were arrested, five MCD officials suspended, and the Delhi High Court ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident.
Twelve people were pulled out of the debris — seven of them died, and five are undergoing treatment.
For those who witnessed the collapse, the memory of those first few minutes has stayed with them — not only because a building had suddenly come down, but because amid the dust, fear and cries for help, there were phones pointed at the scene when more helping hands were desperately needed. PTI SGV NB NB
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