‘Jumped From Houses To Save Themselves’: Survivors Of East Delhi Fire Incident Recount Horror
East Delhi Fire: Survivours recounted the horror of the night wherein some were stranded in their flats for hours, while others faced the dire prospect of jumping from their balconies to save their lives.
People who survived a major fire in an east Delhi residential building on Tuesday recounted the horror of the night; some were stranded in their flats for hours, while others faced the dire prospect of jumping from their balconies to save their lives. A 55-year-old woman died while nine persons, including a fireman, were injured in the blaze at a four-storey building in Shakarpur area in the early hours of Tuesday. Delhi Fire Services (DFS) rescued 25 people from the building that housed around 40 people.
A senior DFS officer said that Anita Singh, who died in the incident, was lying unconscious on the couch near the main door when the fire personnel reached her house during the rescue operation. Anita was lying on the couch when we reached the fourth floor. Two others were also lying in the house unconscious and we immediately took them to the hospital,” the officer said, as per news agency PTI.
Anita could be trying to escape or she may have been waiting to be rescued near the door, the officer said. Anita, who was employed at a boutique at Greater Kailash, had also received some burn injuries, said Parul, a relative, according to PTI's report.
Anita’s sister-in-law Beena and nephew Piyush – who were also in the house – were admitted to RML Hospital and GTB Hospital respectively.
Suparbha Devi, who was living on the first floor of the building with her family, said that her daughter jumped from the house to save her life but received a fracture in her hand, the report mentioned.
“When the fire broke out, we rushed to the balcony as there was no way to come out of the house from the main door. My daughter Shivani jumped from the balcony and received a fracture in her hand,” Suparbha said. “Later, some people took a ladder and helped us to get out of our house,” she said.
A man threw his three-year-old child from the second-floor balcony of a building where a fire broke out in the Shakarpur area of Laxmi Nagar before jumping with his elder son and wife. All four family members are currently undergoing treatment, three of them in ICU. Kamal Tiwari (40), a resident of the five-storey building in east Delhi, wrapped his three-year-old child in a blanket and threw him from the balcony to save him from the fire that had already engulfed the entrance of his house, PTI reported.
Immediately after, he jumped with his 12-year-old son and wife Priyanka (36) to escape the blaze. The family was sleeping when they smelt smoke coming from the entrance of the flat. By the time they realised that the building had caught fire, it was too late.
The entrance was completely engulfed in fire so they couldn't escape, Sanjay Garg, a relative, said. “They had no choice but to jump”. Garg said that they got to know that the fire started from the ground floor which later spread to the other floors. Priyanka took water from the washroom and poured it on the rest of them in the house. She also poured it around in the room to prevent the fire from spreading. She did this for half an hour,” he said.
Later, their elder son suggested that they should jump from the balcony rather than die in the fire, Garg said. “Kamal was the last person among the four who jumped from the second-floor flat”. The family was initially taken to RML Hospital but since the condition of the father and the kids was not well, we had to bring them to a private hospital, he added.
The father and both kids were admitted to Kailash Deepak Hospital in Karkardooma as their condition was said to be critical. All three of them have been admitted to the ICU, and the condition of the three-year-old child is critical, PTI reported relatives as informing.
East Delhi Fire: Officials Say Low-Hanging Open Wires Delayed Response
Dev Singh Adhikari, a fourth-floor resident, said that they were stuck on the balcony for around four to five hours and came out of the building early in the morning. My son was working on his laptop when he got to know about the fire. He alerted us and rushed to the terrace. "We saw that some people jumped from their houses to save themselves. Later, the firemen came to our house and rescued us. They initially asked us to come downstairs from the building but we refused. We went to the terrace and came out from the adjacent building," said Adhikari, who had moved to the house earlier in April this year, as per the report.
Ritik Mathur, who runs a garments business with his father in Gandhi Nagar, said, "I came home around 12.30 am and till then everything was normal. The incident took place around 1 am. I was in the house along with my father, mother, brother and sister. We also have a dog named Buzo. My family members came down through ladders when the fire personnel helped them.”
He added that he stayed with the dog till the fire was doused. “We called the electricity department to cut the supply. The fire tenders also reached late. We somehow got to know about the incident timely. Had it been half an hour more, we would have not survived, he said.
“People jumped from their houses during the incident. My father also asked us to jump from the second floor. However, we gave him hope that firemen will save us and said that there is no need to do anything like that," he said, as reported by PTI.
Fire officials said that there were many low-hanging open wires in the street due to which it took them more time to reach the spot. Naresh, who was on the first floor of the building during the fire, jumped from his house and received an injury in his leg. Fire officials said that they have also rescued four to five birds and two dogs from the building.
"There were two dogs and four birds in different flats which were rescued by us. The dogs -- a golden retriever and a labrador -- were on the second and third floors,” the DFS official said. Four cars, 11 bikes, and three cycles were gutted in the incident. One of the cars belonged to Kamal Tiwari, a second-floor resident, who had bought the car only a few days back. Occupants said the building was constructed in 2008. Five homeowners and three tenants stayed in the building.
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