A three-year-old boy rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building in Delhi's New Seemapuri is searching for his mother, 35-year-old Nusrat, who died in the tragedy.
Neighbours found the child crying beside his injured grandmother, Salma, shortly after the building collapsed on Wednesday afternoon. The boy suffered minor injuries and was discharged from Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital on Thursday. His family said he has been restless and repeatedly asking for his mother.
“He is restless and constantly crying for his mother,” his aunt, Shehnaz, said. She added that the boy was too young to understand if the family told him that Nusrat had died.
The collapse initially left three people dead and eight injured, but the death toll rose to five after two more bodies were recovered on Thursday. One or two people are still feared trapped under the debris, according to police.
Nusrat was heading downstairs when the building collapsed
Nusrat's husband, Abdul Hasan, 37, said he had left home around 9am on Wednesday for his garment shop in central Delhi's Gol Market. His wife, who had undergone surgery about 20 days earlier, was sleeping with their son at the time.
At around 3.30pm, Hasan received a call from his brother-in-law, Sheikh Noor, informing him that the building had collapsed and that his family was trapped.
Hasan rushed back and found that his son and in-laws had survived, but Nusrat was missing. Her body was recovered at around 3.30am on Thursday.
The couple had been married for five years before having their son. They had moved into the building only a month earlier because their house, around 300 metres away, was being reconstructed.
Nusrat's father, Anwar, owned the collapsed building and had been supervising construction work on his daughter's house.
Noor said the three-year-old had a narrow escape. The boy was on the ground floor with his grandmother when the structure gave way. Nusrat had been climbing down from the second floor towards the first floor to give food to her son when the building collapsed.
Hazra Bibi died after trying to save her grandson
Another victim was 60-year-old Hazra Bibi, whose body was recovered from the debris on Thursday.
Her husband, Sheikh Hamid, said Hazra had locked their home before leaving to meet her sister-in-law Salma. The keys were found in her right hand when her body was recovered, although the family said rescue teams had not handed them over.
Hamid, sitting outside his locked ground-floor home around 100 metres from the collapse site, said neighbours had brought the grieving family water, tea and food, but he was too distressed to eat.
He said his wife may have survived had she not tried to protect her 17-year-old grandson, Ayaan.
According to eyewitnesses, Hazra saw Ayaan standing in the lane moments before the building collapsed and shouted at him to run into an adjoining lane. Ayaan did so, while Hazra ran towards another lane in front of the building. The structure then collapsed towards that lane, trapping her beneath the debris.
Hazra is survived by her husband, four sons and two daughters. One of her sons, 25-year-old Sheikh Haider, was arrested about two weeks ago for allegedly possessing a knife and remains in jail. Her other sons, Sheikh Gaffar, 35, Sheikh Jabbar, 30, and Sheikh Sahil, 20, were away at work when the collapse occurred.
Her two daughters are married and live with their in-laws in Seemapuri and Vijay Nagar.
Rescue operation hampered by narrow lanes
The collapse took place at around 3.30pm in the densely populated lanes of New Seemapuri, near Idgah Machhli Mandi. Local residents rushed to assist firefighters, with the side of an Eidgah serving as the only access point for rescue teams.
The first body, that of a child, was being recovered from the debris at around 7.20pm. Firefighters, Delhi Police, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, the National Disaster Response Force and civic authorities took part in the rescue operation.
Four JCB machines, ambulances and sniffer dogs were deployed as teams cleared the rubble. Power was also cut after an electricity pole was damaged and wires were snapped. The narrow lanes and dense settlement made access difficult.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi said the structure was around 20 to 25 years old and stood on a plot belonging to the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board. Officials described it as a ground-plus-three-storey structure, while local residents said it had five storeys. Other reports have similarly highlighted discrepancies over the building's number of floors.
The collapse also damaged two adjoining buildings, while part of the boundary wall of a nearby Eidgah or mosque came down.
Earthquake cracks raise questions over structural safety
Residents said the building had developed cracks after earthquake tremors were felt in Delhi a day before the collapse. Authorities, however, have not established that the tremors caused the building to fall, and a detailed structural assessment is expected to determine the exact reason.
The incident has renewed concerns over structural safety and enforcement in densely populated parts of the capital. It came only about a month after a paying guest accommodation in Delhi's Satya Niketan collapsed, killing seven people.
Locals have also told authorities that one or two people could still be trapped beneath the debris, keeping the search operation active.
The Seemapuri collapse is the latest in a series of building-related tragedies in Delhi this year, putting renewed focus on construction practices, ageing structures and enforcement of safety regulations in the capital.