NEW DELHI: A different kind of noise was heard in Satya Niketan on Monday. Not the familiar sounds of students spilling out of cafes and dhabas, conversations flowing onto the streets and vehicles weaving through the crowded lanes, but of the relentless roar of JCB machines, ambulances and the anxious conversations of rescue teams.
The debris-laden vacant plot, where a multi-storey building housing PG accommodation had stood until it collapsed on Sunday, drew vacant stares from locals and onlookers alike.
It had been part of the neighbourhood’s everyday landscape; now, it was reduced to a heap of concrete, iron and dust. For those standing behind the barricades, the scene was a stark reminder of how close death had come.
More than 24 hours after the building collapsed, the neighbourhood remained suspended between grief and hope. Rescue teams worked through the night and into the second day, with bodies recovered in the early hours around 3 am and again at noon, nine hours apart.
At the site, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel moved through the debris while Delhi University students stood behind the barricades, their eyes fixed on the ruins, waiting for one announcement that their “missing friend” had been found.
The area had been cordoned off. Residents and students in nearby buildings were asked to remain there, while no one was allowed to enter or leave except officials on duty.
‘Heard screams & saw people running’
The building adjacent to the collapsed structure had been supported with iron rods, apparently as a precaution amid concerns that it too may have been affected.
For students, the tragedy was not just about a building. It was about the precarious life many of them have built around DU, far from their homes. One of the students, Taarina, said,
“I have been thinking since last night that had I been there in the building, my parents would have died too out of shock. Imagine the situation of parents who must have collected so much of the money for their kids to send them to DU—their varsity fees, their PG fees etc, their clothes etc—and in one second, everything gone. There will be no daily calls, ‘Mummy sab sahi hain, padhai achchi chal rahi hai … Diwali pe aaunga .. etc.’ I am just sinking at the thought of it alone..”
The conversations around the barricades repeatedly returned to one question: where do students coming from different parts of the country go when DU has too few hostel rooms for them? For Suchita, a final-year student at Aryabhatta College, the collapsed building was part of her everyday route. She would pass it regularly after college to buy milk. On Sunday afternoon, she was at the shop when the building came down.
“I heard the screams and saw people running towards the building to save the students who were trapped inside,” she recalled.
Mehmood, a delivery worker who was in a neighbouring building at the time, watched the collapse. “I have seen it with my eyes. Poori imaarat kuch hi seconds mein dhah gayi. Aas-paas kohram mach gaya tha, log bhagne lage. Doosri building ke bachche darr ke neeche aa gaye the,” he said.
Amid the devastation, there were also small acts of solidarity. DU NSS volunteers distributed water and biscuits to NDRF and MCD workers. Student groups brought water, Indian Youth Congress workers distributed food, and a nearby gurdwara sent meals for those working at the site.