Mahad building collapse | IT professional’s presence of mind saved many lives by a whisker

After around 40 hours of rescue operation, 16 bodies were found while two people were found alive beneath the rubbles.

Rescuers work amidst the rubble of the five-storey building that collapsed on Monday evening, in Mahad.

The presence of mind of Avesh Chichkar, a 25-year-old IT professional and cricket coach, helped save lives of at least 20 people of the B wing in the Tarique Garden building in Mahad which collapsed on August 24. Mr. Chichkar had just come back home from gym around 6 p.m. on Monday. After reaching the building, he noticed one of the pillars at the parking lot having been damaged. He went to his home on the fifth floor and sat for eating snacks on the dining table in the kitchen.

“The fridge was just beside the place where I was seated to have my snacks. I sensed a sudden movement of the fridge. I asked my mother who was cooking, if she felt anything and she answered in negative. Yet I felt there was something wrong and a disaster was waiting to happen and I asked my family — parents and a brother — to leave the house immediately. I did anticipate something of this magnitude was waiting to happen though,” Mr. Chichkar said.

Watch | 5-storey building in Mumbai Raigad district's Mahad collapses

While going down from the fifth floor, Mr. Chichkar raised an alarm and knocked on each flat of the B wing asking the occupants to vacate the house. The five-storey society had four flats in each floor in both wings. “We all reached down the parking lot and clicked a photo of the pillar that was damaged and suddenly we heard a sound and saw another pillar breaking. That’s when we all ran to the nearby Bismillah Complex. Within a minute after reaching the nearby complex, we saw Tarique Garden collapsing like a pack of cards,” Mr. Chichkar said.

Battles for life

While they were waiting at the parking lot, Naveed Duste (32), an electrician who had come to the building for some work, rushed to the first floor wherein a family he knows resided. Though he successfully saved the family, he ended up damaging both his legs. Currently, he is battling for life at Apollo Hospital in Navi Mumbai.

Hearing all the chaos in the building, Mr. Chichkar’s younger brother, Taha (22), who was fishing at a nearby pond, rushed to the building to check on his family in a flat on the fifth floor. The flat was closed as they had already ran to safety at Bismillah Complex. While he was coming down from the fifth floor, Mr. Taha saw Mehrunisa Kazi (60) going down at the third floor and at second floor, he saw her husband Abdul Hamid Kazi with his five-year-old grandson going down. Mr. Taha took the child and rushed down. After he went down, within seconds the building collapsed. Later, during the rescue operation, Mr. Kazi’s body was recovered while Ms. Kazi was found alive after close to 26 hours of the collapse.

Search for belongings

After the rescue operation, the survivors rushed to the spot to search for their belongings. “If nothing else, we wanted to get our important documents like passports, ATM cards, licences, property papers but there was absolutely nothing. Some managed to recover licence and passport and most of them are still looking for the valuables. The rains made it worse. It is now all mud everywhere. We do not know from where and how we can start our lives back as everything we had is now gone,” Mr. Chichkar said.