In photo: Hariom Sisodiya, Gulaab, Md Ishtiyaq and Pawan Thakur
“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. We took it upon ourselves to calmly ask them to stay back,” he said.
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. 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.