A student shared an SOS video while trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building in the Indian capital on Sunday, prompting his rescue.
Aditya, a commerce undergraduate at Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, sent the video to a friend, who then arrived at the collapsed building and worked with rescue teams to save him.
Aditya was one of about a dozen students who were trapped when a five-storey building collapsed in southwest Delhi over the weekend. The building housed private hostels for students attending Delhi University.
The collapse killed Abhishek Kumar, 19; Arpit Jaj, 19; Yuvraj Soni, 20; Pavan Kumar, 17; Surendra Singh, 56; Akshat Singh, 19; and Param Lal Kori, 30.
The 11-second video showed the student’s dust-covered face squeezed between concrete slabs in a tight space filled with rubble.
The student was rescued safely and admitted to a local hospital, officials said.
open image in galleryAfter the collapse of the building, the Delhi police arrested the owner of the building, Urmila Gupta, her husband, Hariram Gupta, a retired air force sergeant, and their son, Mahesh Gupta.
The government, meanwhile, suspended five officials of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the civic body responsible for issuing licences.
On Monday, the Delhi High Court ordered the municipal corporation to investigate whether private buildings housing students in the city complied with building laws and to flag any violations. It said a system endangering young lives could not be accepted under any circumstances.
“A large number of students come to Delhi from outside for their studies. They are the future of the country,” the court said, pointing out that the condition of the places they were forced to live in was “pathetic”.
“You cannot evade your responsibility,” the court told the government. “Fifty young students are on the threshold of starting their lives. Most of them are likely still trapped under the debris. Nothing could be more tragic than this.”
Some 50 students were living in the building that collapsed on Sunday. It was reportedly undergoing renovations at the time.
The death toll might have been higher had it not been a weekend, when several students were away from their rooms.
open image in gallery“It is certain that there was water in the building’s basement,” Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta told reporters, “and due to accumulation of water, due to ongoing repair work, the old building collapsed.”
The deaths have prompted protests and calls for accountability from the government over the unsafe conditions of student accommodations and other buildings in Delhi.
The Cockroach Janta Party, an activist group which led a major protest earlier this year to force the resignation of India’s education minister, issued a seven-point charter of demands after the building collapse. In particular, it demanded accountability from Delhi’s minister for urban development and education Ashish Sood.
Ms Gupta said her state government was taking the incident “very seriously” and assured that anyone found guilty would not be spared.
In a post on X, she said nearby student accommodations and other structures were being thoroughly inspected. She said she had ordered immediate sealing of buildings across the city with unauthorised fifth floors.