Mumbai: For over 16 hours, Rajesh Deora waited for news of his family surviving the Ghatkopar building crash. The third-floor resident of Sai Darshan Society had left for work when it collapsed on Tuesday morning, claiming 17 lives and injuring 30. Mr. Deora rushed back from his workplace in Masjid Bunder to find the building he had called home was now a pile of rubble. The Deoras were residents of Sai Darshan since 11 years, and were looking to move elsewhere in Ghatkopar, when tragedy struck.
Fate, however, had disappointment in store: around 4.30 a.m. on Wednesday, the bodies of his mother Subhadraben, brother Vijay and sister-in-law Hina were pulled out of the debris by rescue workers, all holding hands. His sisters Julie and Sadhana and nephew Vardhan survived: the women were at a local temple while the boy was at college. “Every time someone was pulled out, I would hope it was one of them,” Mr. Deora said, heartbroken.
Rachit Deora, 24, a relative who was with Rajesh, said, “I was buying something to eat when a relative called asking me to rush to Rajawadi Hospital as the bodies had been recovered. Rajesh bhai hasn’t stopped crying since; this is a terrible loss for all of us.” Only a couple of days ago, the family had lost Rachit’s mother, whose last rites had been conducted on Monday.
“In a pancake collapse, the floors come crashing down one atop the other. In such a case, the middle floors, like the third floor on which the Deoras lived, get trapped in between and access becomes a challenge,” an NDRF officer said.
