NEW DELHI: It was a normal Sunday afternoon in Satya Niketan market – till the earth suddenly thundered, shook violently and dust overwhelmed the entire neighbourhood. “When the dirt finally settled, we saw that an entire building had turned to rubble,” said Md Ishtiyaq, an electrician.Ishtiyaq, along with a few locals, climbed the mountain of debris and started to look for survivors immediately. Some were afraid that the adjacent building might come crashing down too, “but we helped anyway”, he said. Borrowing a hammer from a shop nearby, Ishtiyaq managed to break a PVC pipe in which a student’s leg was trapped.Every year, thousands of students trying to find a roof near their colleges flock to Satya Niketan, located near Delhi University’s South Campus. But what they find are poorly-built paying guest accommodations, with cramped rooms, zero ventilation and no emergency exits.“At first, there was total chaos near the fallen PG. People were running everywhere, but students soon started to make human chains to try and control the crowd,” recalled a resident. A human assembly line was improvised to remove chunks of walls, with iron rods sticking out, from the site of the collapse.At the time of the incident, Hariom Sisodiya and Pawan Thakur, both DU students and NSUI volunteers, were hanging out in the South Campus area when a friend informed them about the collapse. “He called us and said one of his friends might have been inside the PG. We were shocked when we reached the spot,” said Hariom.Holding out both palms, scratched red from handling debris on Sunday, Pawan said, “We were there for almost two hours, picking and throwing out whatever we could get our hands on.”By the time authorities arrived and cleared out the spot, the volunteers had disposed of a small pile of bricks, pipes, rods, broken pieces of plaster and chunks of concrete. Their efforts helped rescue three people from the debris.As rescue operations continued well into Sunday night, locals arranged water and refreshments for the rescuers. Gulaab, a student volunteer, was at the site all night, trying to help in any way possible. “The crowd was nosy and kept crossing police lines. We took it upon ourselves to calmly ask them to stay back,” he said.On Monday, NSS cadres and students from nearby colleges arrived with biscuits, water bottles, soft drinks and medical supplies. “We are all concerned for our classmates living here. We brought something to replenish the energy of all those working against the clock to save lives,” said Vaishnavi from Maitreyi College.
