LUCKNOW: The police control room received a distress call in the wee hours of Friday regarding the people trapped under the debris of an under-construction boundary wall that had collapsed in the Dilkusha area here.
The call made amidst heavy downpour at 3.24 am urged immediate intervention and help, police said.
By 3.27 am, the message was passed on to the police station and the fire brigade, and in the next 15 minutes, the police force was walking in waist-deep water, looking for those trapped under the debris, they said.
"As we reached the spot 15 minutes after the message was passed on to the police station, our first priority and effort were to locate the person who had made the call to the control room, and pull him out from the debris," ACP Cantonment Anup Kumar Singh, who was also present at the spot of the incident, told PTI.
"It was Golu, who had made the call to the police control room. After pulling him from the debris, he was sent to the Dr Syama Prasad Mukherjee (Civil) Hospital," he said.
The fire brigade team also arrived on the spot and the wall was gradually broken and debris were removed.
Following this the bodies were pulled out one by one, he added. The rescue operation continued till around 9.30 am, amidst rains, Singh said, adding that the rains slowed down around the same time the operation ended.
Narrating the scene and situation in which, the police, fire brigade and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) carried out the rescue operation, Singh said, "The scene and situation were such that there was absolute darkness, no electricity, continuous rainfall and water up to waist-level high in which the rescue operation was carried out.
" Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Piyush Mordia had also reached the spot to oversee the rescue work, he added."
"Some labourers were living in huts outside an Army enclave in the Dilkusha area. Owing to heavy overnight rains, the boundary wall of the Army enclave collapsed," Joint Commissioner of Police Mordia told PTI.
"We reached the spot around 3 am. Nine bodies were pulled out from the debris. One person was rescued alive," he said.