Three months of Ahmedabad plane tragedy: Life, livelihoods slowly limping back to normal around AI 171 crash site

The area, which contained the spot where Makwana’s cart stood, was cordoned off. Traumatised by the incident, Makwana did not think much about his source of livelihood for a long time. But a couple of weeks ago, he went to the site and took permission from the police personnel posted there to retrieve his cart and restart his life.

“There are no sales here…” Makwana admits. “But at least we don’t sit at home and think about all this (the plane crash).”

Makwana’s previous work location is cordoned off by mobile iron barricades, announcing “work in progress”, put up by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to keep people away from entering the damaged hostel buildings.

Remembering his past customers, Makwana says, “Aakash Patni was my regular. He used to come to me daily with a Rs 20 note, demanding a chocolate.”

Aakash, 13, was one of those on the ground who lost their lives in the blaze that ensued after the crash. A police outpost has now replaced the tea stall run by Aakash’s family. “The outpost is actually just to stop passersby from making reels here,” says a senior police officer.

For a month after the crash, the site was closed for investigation by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB). It has now been returned to the Gujarat health department, and regular traffic has resumed.

Makwana’s family escaped Aakash’s fate, but only by a whisker. His son Hasmukh was handling the shop on the scorching afternoon of June 12 when the massive passenger aircraft crashed into the front side of one of the hostel buildings. The explosion was so huge that it threw Hasmukh and the kachori-seller next to him on the ground.

“I was about to leave home to take over the shop when Hasmukh called me and asked me to stay put. When he reached home, his face was ashy. He could not eat anything for two days because of what he had seen there,” says Makwana.

Hasmukh chimes in: “The wind and noise was so great that it knocked me to the ground and all my goods were scattered. After I recovered, I saw the destruction. I immediately packed up and left for home. We came back just two weeks ago and requested the local police to let us take back our shop (cart).”

At the crash site, a constable from Meghaninagar police station has been standing guard almost continuously since the tragedy.

Apart from keeping the site inviolate for the investigation, one of the main jobs for police personnel posted here is to keep curious onlookers at bay.

As the city marks three months of the tragedy on September 12, people driving through the area, as if on cue, look up to see the burnt shells of the four hostel blocks that loom large over the horizon – a constant, poignant reminder of the lives lost here.

A man on his bike, his mother riding pillion, halts in front of the barricades. He lets go of the bike handle, turns his palm to indicate an airplane, and gestures to his mother who solemnly nods.

Another man, this one with his 10-year-old son in tow, attempts to ride his bike through the barricades before a constable stops him.

Jaypalsingh Rathore, the Additional Commissioner of Police (Sector-2), told The Indian Express, “We have released the crash site from our custody but have posted a police team there just to make sure that people don’t wander into these dangerous buildings to click photos and make Instagram reels. It (the checks) is for their own safety.”

Among the charred buildings and blackened trees, life does seem to be returning to the area. While police personnel described seeing countless dead birds on the premises, parrots, crows, sparrows and squirrels could be seen around the broken boundary wall of the hostel buildings from where parts of the ill-fated aircraft along with scores of charred bodies were carried out on stretchers just 90 days ago.

Some doctors have also returned to reoccupy the Atulyam-8 building, situated some distance away from the destroyed Atulyam 1-4, which was used as a base for the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) during the rescue operations. A lone staffer of the Gujarat Industrial Security Force (GISF) stands guard here.

A few medical students of BJ Medical College, former residents of Atulyam, now stay in the Sopanam hostel buildings situated around 200 metres from the crash site. Having lost colleagues in the tragedy, they refuse to talk about it.

Dean Dr Minakshi Parikh, who is also the Head of Psychiatry department, says while counselling – both individual and group — have been given to students, those who need further help are being facilitated by the in-house team at the psychiatry department.

Meanwhile, sources in the health department say that tentative discussions to build 11-storey hostel blocks at the same site, after testing the burnt buildings, are underway.

Residents in Meghaninagar, the residential area in the vicinity, still cannot get over what they call “God’s grace” that saved them from the worst of the plane crash. Here, conversations are usually loud with aircraft, taking off from Runway 23 of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, flying directly over the area, often two within a gap of 5-10 minutes.

Taking a deep breath from his inhaler, an octogenarian, a former mill worker who has been living in the government housing board apartment since 1961, says, “I have lived here for 60 years and over time, you tend to drone out the sound of aircraft passing overhead. But since the close shave, I cannot help becoming alert the moment I hear the sound of a plane.”

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