Ringing phones and crying victim lead rescuers to trapped workers
New Delhi: Ringing phones and crying victim were the clues that helped fire officials locate the spot where workers were trapped in the flaming factory building which left 43 dead and 16 injured on Sunday morning.
DFS rescuers told Millennium Post that visibility inside the factory was very poor due to the billowing smoke and heat. "When we reached the factory godown, we heard a cry from one of the victims. It was the first clue through which we reached out to the trapped people," said Ashish Kumar, a DFS official.
After they entered the factory, they felt that something touch their feet and it turned out to be nothing but the victims lying unconscious on the floor. The rescue operation took more than six hours. Another fire official said that before going inside the factory, victims' relatives told them that they had made phone calls to the people who were inside the building and they had given their locations. "We heard a phone ringing from one of the rooms. We reached there and found that labourers were lying. They were taken out and rushed to the hospital," said the official.
Sunil Kumar, a fire official said that first, they rescued five to six people. Later, they came to know that more people were trapped and went inside to continue their rescue operation.
"The victims' family members told us that their relatives who were trapped inside the building had made phone calls to them and told them about the place they were trapped," said Kumar.
He said that the first person was rescued from a toilet inside the factory. The fire officials were telling victims that they would be rescued safely in a few minutes.
Data from the DFS revealed that more than 200 persons died in different incidents including fire, house collapse in the city in 2018-19. The data further says that calls regarding various such incidents also increased last year. The data, accessed by Millennium Post, revealed that 297 deaths were reported last year, whereas 1,597 persons were injured in different incidents. The city also witnessed 27 medium and five serious fire incidents last year. In 2017, as many as 318 people died and 1,767 were injured.
