NEW DELHI: With flames all around, a power cut and the only escape route, the staircase, darkened by dense smoke, the occupants of a building on fire in F block of Ganesh Nagar II in east Delhi were trapped. While others soaked themselves with water, the panicked parents on the second floor wrapped their three-year-old son in pillows and blankets and jumped down.
All that Kamal Tiwari, 40, and his wife, Priyanka, 36, wanted to do was to save their sons, Shaurya, 12, and Shivaya, 3. When the flames started rising, Priyanka found the rear engulfed in smoke. Finding no escape route, she filled buckets from the bathroom and poured the water on her husband and sons. After bundling Shivaya in blankets and pillows, all four jumped down.
"All four are being treated," Tiwari's brother-in-law, Sanjay Garg, told TOI. "Priyanka suffered 40% burns while Kamal is in the ICU but stable. Both the sons received head injuries and are also in the ICU. Kamal told me they had lost hope of surviving and gathered on the bed, leaving everything to fate. It was then that Shaurya motivated them to try and save themselves. Shivaya was thrown down first, then Shaurya jumped down, followed by the parents."
The new Tata Punch car that Tiwari, a private BCA/MCA teacher, had purchased on Diwali was completely charred.
On the floor below the Tiwaris lived Naresh Nagar, 60, with his wife, Madhubala, and 26-year-old son, Yuvraj. Nagar's daughter and her two-year old son Latik were also in the house. Nagar jumped from the first floor and fractured his leg, but the others were rescued and brought down the ladder.
Suprabha Devi, her husband, daughter, Shivani, and son, Harshvardhan, too escaped a tragedy. Devi said her daughter was working on the laptop when she became aware of the fire. "We were lucky she was awake. Had it not been for her, anything could have happened," said Devi. "Shivani jumped down from the first floor to save herself and suffered a fracture and some facial injuries. She got engaged in August this year and her wedding was planned for next year. Everything in the house is damaged." The remaining members of the family were rescued after a neighbour brought a ladder and helped them come down.
There was a different worry for Ritik Mathur, 27. He had to carry his pet Golden Retriever Buzo down the ladder from the second floor on the less affected left portion of the building. "My brother and I smelt something burning and saw from the balcony that flames from the stilt parking were gradually ascending. The iron grilles felt hot to the touch. We stood on the balcony to be rescued," he said.
It was only in April that Dev Singh, 55, had bought a house on the fourth floor after voluntary retirement from the Border Security Force. He, his wife Nima, 51, son Ashish, 23, and daughter, Bhavna, 29, waited patiently on the balcony for four hours to be rescued as neighbours passed them water to keep themselves safe. "When I tried opening the door to the staircase, a blast of heat gushed up along with acrid smoke," said Singh. "There was no way down. In fact, a resident of the third floor climbed up to my house thinking it was the terrace."
Although the right side of the building bore the brunt of the blaze, people on the left portion suffered due to the smoke that penetrated the interiors of the building. Later, the residents could be seen rummaging through the remains of their belongings, ashy and shaken.