Kolkata building collapse | 9 and still counting: Parade of bodies comes out from Garden Reach rubble
Times of India | 19 March 2024
KOLKATA: Syed Mustafa Ali (48) was unable to fathom whether he should thank his luck or cry over his destiny as a last-minute nudge by his wife to head to the market saved him when the neighbouring illegal building on Garden Reach Road crashed on his home, killing his wife, brother and sister-in-law.
“I just went out to buy some food for Sehri around 11 pm.When I was returning, I got a call from a neighbour that this building had collapsed on our home and that all my family members are trapped inside. I ran home but it was nowhere visible. I sat right there for three hours before they pulled out my wife’s body around 3am. My sister-in-law was the next to be pulled out in another hour and by Monday afternoon, they pulled out my brother,” said Ali, sitting on the pavement of Unipon Hospital in Paharpur where his niece and her son were admitted.
Ali’s wife Shama Begum (44) and his sister-in-law Haseena Khatun (55) were the first two to be pulled out dead. Bodies of Rizwan Alam (23) and Akbar Ali (34), who lived next doors, were pulled out by Monday morning. By afternoon, the death toll increased to seven when rescuers had pulled out bodies of Md Wasik (19), Md Imran (27) and Mustafa’s brother Ramzan Ali (60).
Bodies continued to tumble out till late evening as two more — Sheikh Abdullah (18) and Nasimuddin Sheikh (45) —were pulled out till last reports came in.
Apart from Nasimuddin, who was a labourer working at the building, all others were residents of the same neighbourhood. “Most members of my family had gone to sleep while Iwas still working on my sewing machine when the roof of our home collapsed and we were trapped inside. I could pull myself out but my brother-in-law Akbar Ali was crushed,” said Noor Jahan Begum, aresident of the area. Akbar was a kitemaker.
Noor Jahan’s nephews Aftab Alam (10) and Khushi Parveen (8) were also caught under the debris and could be pulled out around dawn. Both are admitted at a local hospital.
Young Md Wasik’s parents and family members were inconsolable as they were found crying outside the hospital when doctors declared him dead on arrival. “He was a bright boy and was loved by the entire neighbourhood. He had just gone out for a brief chat with his friends near the building. Who would have known he would never come back,” one of the relatives said.