A wooden log supporting the concrete slab being laid on the third floor broke around 9.30am on Thursday as at least five labourers manually carried construction material in mortar pans from the ground floor to the top floor, passing them along a human chain on the staircase, according to statements given by two survivors of the Chawri Bazar building collapse.
Kishori and Sanjeet were dead by the time they were rescued. Four labourers were reportedly missing and feared trapped under the rubble. Chaudhary and Firoz were among nearly 18 labourers working at the under-construction three-storey building when it collapsed. At least 11 managed to rush out in time, while Chaudhary, Firoz and two others — Kishori, 40, and Sanjeet, 45 — were pulled out of the debris by locals and rescue teams from the fire department, police and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) by Thursday.
Search and rescue operations entered their second day on Friday and continued until late evening, a police officer aware of the developments said.
Firoz spoke to his wife and four children using a hospital staff member’s mobile phone and told them he was fine. He is missing his family, who are in their village in Madhepura, and has been insisting on being discharged so he can return home, the third person said.
The log’s failure disturbed the balance of the other supporting wooden logs, which also gave way, causing the lintel – a horizontal concrete structural beam — to collapse first, followed by the entire structure, said three people aware of the statements given by the survivors, Sahdev Chaudhary, 25, and Mohammad Firoz, 37. Raja Kumar, whose 40-year-old uncle Bipin Ram is among the four missing labourers, also said the workers were supposed to travel to Bihar by train on Thursday. “I last spoke to my uncle around 5.30am on Thursday. Around 11.30am, another surviving labourer, Deepak, told me about the building collapse.
Both are undergoing treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU) of Lok Nayak Hospital. Chaudhary, meanwhile, sneaked out of the hospital after being admitted and returned to the collapse site to look for his mobile phone and other belongings.
He was spotted there and brought back to the hospital in the evening, the three people said. He told me to meet him at Mandawali in the evening so we could proceed to the railway station. I have been at the scene since Thursday afternoon, hoping to see my uncle alive,” Kumar said.
