‘There were no windows, stairs were on fire... We were choking’

Soumya Pillai and Hemani Bhandari

NEW DELHI: Shazia Parveen dressed in her best outfit and put herself through a meticulous makeup routine on Friday. She had to attend a “special motivational programme” at her office in west Delhi’s Mundka.

The event started around 4pm and the talk was only midway through when Parveen, who worked at an electronics goods manufacturing firm, heard her colleagues from the other end of the room screaming.

“We were being told how we can contribute to building the future of the company and how this will not only help the firm, but will also aid our own growth. Barely 30 minutes into the speech, everyone started yelling that the building was on fire,” the 36-yearold said.

Parveen said she was among 200- 250 people on the second floor of the building that caught fire on Friday, killing at least 27 people and injuring 17. She escaped with minor injuries.

Dr Suresh Arora, medical superintendent of the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, where victims of the fire were taken, said the first patient was brought in at 5.40pm. Till midnight that day, 12 patients were discharged after treating minor injuries and superficial burns, Dr Arora said.

On Saturday, five more people were sent for medical aid, the last of whom was discharged by 2pm.

“The people who managed to get out of the building escaped with minor injuries. Most sustained superficial burns or small bruises that they might have got while trying to escape,” said Dr Arora.

The bodies of those who were trapped were charred beyond recognition, doctors from the hospital said on Saturday.

“People either escaped with minor injuries or were completely charred. We did not receive any patients who had severe injuries,” said one of the doctors, asking not to be named.

When 35-year-old Priyanka Gupta left the hospital after getting her hands dressed for burns, she was hounded by her colleague’s family members, asking if she had any news of their loved ones. She found no appropriate way to respond.

“It may sound selfish, but how do I tell them that all I could think of at the time was to survive and get out of the building,” Gupta said.

Gupta recalled that the first responders were neighbouring residents, business owners and workers, who started smashing the glass panes that layered the building and getting people out, even before rescue teams could reach the site. She climbed down using a rope that residents secured, connecting one end to a nearby shop and the other to a portion of the burning building.

Survivors said there would have been even higher were it not for two cranes that residents pressed into the rescue efforts.

Suresh, the driver of one of the cranes, said he was near the building when he heard people screaming, and spotted fumes from the four-storey building.

“My boss, who owns the crane service, asked me to get one of the cranes and start getting people out of the building. I believe we managed to get at least 100 people out, but as the fire intensified, flames started coming toward us and glass panes started shattering and falling on us from above. We could have saved more people if the fire had not spread,” he said.

When the fire spread, the people inside the building were on different floors. On the first floor the employees were working at the offices of the CCTV and Wifi router assembly unit. Most people were on the second floor attending the motivational speaker’s session. Others on the third floor were working at the assembly units.

Diksha Rawat, a resident of Mundka who was at the session, said, “...When the door of the hall opened, a lot of smoke gushed into the room and we couldn’t see anything but fire.”

The 27-year-old said that there were no windows in the hall on the second floor. Glass panels that covered the building on all sides were bolted, leaving just one exit from the inferno — a lone staircase. But this route was also blocked by the blaze.

“The staircase was on fire. There was no way to leave the building. The people in the room were gasping for breath... we were screaming and shouting for help. Some of us smashed a glass pane on one side so that we could breathe,” Rawat said.

Other people caught in the fire managed to break the glass pane on the other side. But, as they battled the smoke, it wasn’t easy.

“The pane was quite thick. We used tables, chairs and other furniture to shatter it,” she said.

Rawat recalled how locals got together to help them by putting up wooden ladders and ropes, which a few of them used to climb down. “I came down using a rope and then jumped,” she said.

Another survivor, Pushpa Panwar, said occupants of the building also used a row of ladders tied together to leave.

Many people, she said, climbed back into the building, afraid that they would fall.

“There were so many women who were in two minds about exiting the building using these makeshift ladders and ropes. Many climbed back. A few women who were slightly heavily built were afraid of falling,” said Panwar.

More than 24 hours after the incident, most people HT spoke to at the hospital said they couldn’t believe they survived the fire. But as the dust settled, and they took stock of the damage around them, many said they had lost their friends, and their jobs.