Rescuers work all night - Times of India

As darkness fell in Porur, one spot was lit up brighter than usual. High powered lamps threw light on a grim scene — chunks of concrete, entire pillars and iron rods lay in piles over a 200m area, all that was left of a 12-storey building in Moulivakkam, Porur, which came crashing down on Saturday evening around 4.40pm. More than 50 workers are feared trapped and six are dead.

Water puddled around the debris, soon tur ning the ground to slush as more than 800 fire and police personnel and around 300 trained rescue workers arrived in batches and began cutting through the concrete and iron to free the workers trapped beneath.

The building was one of two 12-storey towers under construction on Kundrathur High Road in Moulivakkam.

One worker reached through a hole in the debris waving his lit-up mobile phone to call attention to himself. Rescue workers swarmed across the site calling out to the men and women beneath, waiting for returning shouts and swinging into action to extricate them. Large hammers, axes, ropes and sheer brute force were used to shift iron and concrete until the heavy machinery and equipment arrived about an hour later.

Ten ambulances from the state 108 service reached the spot at 5pm while the first fire engines from Poonamallee got there at 5.05pm, ten minutes after it received the call about the building collapse. Two ambulances stood at each of the four main access points to the building while close to 100 doctors and paramedics worked to shift the injured as quickly as possible to the nearest hospitals for first aid, while 300 police personnel diverted traffic and joined the efforts.

Relatives of the trapped workers held hands and prayed while police threw a cordon around the building. Some tried breaking through the lines to enter the building and get to their families and friends.

Many of the workers were from the southern districts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, with a fair smattering of workers from the northern states.

About 80 rescue workers from metro rail sites across the city were among the first to reach the spot with earth movers, cutters and heavy machinery around 6.30pm. They were followed by around 80 personnel of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) stationed in Arakkonam who reached around 8.30pm. About an hour before them, 80 Tamil Nadu state disaster response force personnel joined the rescue workers as the government mobilised two gensets for electricity. As the cries of the workers, weakened by hours under the concrete debris, faded, sniffer dogs were brought in to locate the trapped men and women. Another NDRF team of 180 personnel brought water and food packets for both the rescue workers and the trapped labourers when they arrived around 10pm. Seventeen people were extricated from the rubble.

Thick wisps of smoke rose as gas cutters tore through the chunks of cement. The crackle of walkie-talkies filled the air as NDRF personel kept in touch with one another. Since rescue operations are expected to continue for another 24 hours, 250 more NDRF personnel will be arriving within in the next couple of hours.

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