Out of rubble, doll in hand

SADAF MODAK

Sunita Devi Yadav, who was rescued after two days from the debris of the collapsed building, at a hospital in Thane on Saturday. (PTI) Mumbai, April 6: Hasina Sheikh, 10, was playing at her family's fifth-floor flat in Lucky Compound after her Class IV mathematics exam. The doll she was clutching was intact when she was rescued from the rubble of Thursday's collapse hours later. Hasina is in hospital with head and eye injuries and has lost her mother and two siblings. Volunteers at the hospital said her father, a tea vendor, had survived with injuries but officials could not confirm that. Hasina's would have been one of the many poor families who were allowed to stay in the illegal building for free or a low rent to deter demolition squads but were expected to leave once the flats were sold or the owners moved in. Sandhya Thakur, 6, was rescued nearly 36 hours after the collapse and can't open her swollen eyes. The authorities are clueless about her parents' fate. Eleven-month-old Sadaf Sheikh lay almost 12 hours under the debris before being rescued. She has lost mother Sakina and 11 other relatives but her father has survived with leg injuries. Children account for 22 of the 74 dead and a large proportion of the 60-odd injured. Sources said a private tuition class operating from a first-floor flat may have increased the toll. Officials say there is no possibility of more bodies being trapped in the debris and have called off rescue operations. Some 35 migrant labourers from Malda were among those working on Lucky Compound's unfinished eighth floor on Thursday night, Mumbra authorities said. M.D. Dullur Rehman, a former labour contractor, said these labourers may have jumped to safety during the collapse but those working below would have been less lucky. "Many who were on the ground, or were part of the human chain formed on the staircase to pass the loads, did not survive," said Rehman, a Malda native living in Mumbra for the past 15 years. "We haven't been able to trace those 25-odd Malda labourers who survived the collapse. They must have left for home," he said. Rehman added that he had been scouring the accident spot and local hospitals since Thursday night after receiving calls from worried families in Malda. Mumbra, once a strip of marshy land, saw a rise in population and housing, first in 1993 when many shifted there following the Bombay riots and later after land prices skyrocketed in Mumbai. This spurred a boom in illegal construction. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130407/jsp/nation/story_16757159.jsp#.UWGBGqKBlA0