Girder at Metro construction site near Mohan Nagar station comes crashing, 5 injured

Dr Mohan Dubey, medical superintendent of the hospital, said, “Seema and Atul are in the ICU, in a critical state. While Seema has fractures on her arm and legs, Atul too is badly injured. We can’t reveal anything else.” A Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) official said, “An ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh will be paid to those seriously injured, and Rs 1 lakh to those with minor injuries. The medical expenses of all the injured persons are being taken care of.”

The DMRC added that it has removed the project in-charge of the Mohan Nagar Metro station, terminated services of the sub-contractor, suspended the assistant and junior engineers of the project, and “will serve a showcause notice to the sub-contractor for barring them from taking part in any future works of the DMRC”. Ghaziabad Police said no FIR has been filed by the injured or their families so far.

‘It all happened in a minute’

Ghaziabad Police said no FIR has been filed by the injured or their families so far. Praveen Khanna

Hours after the accident, passersby took photographs of the accident site — where the crushed bike and the auto, with squished boxes of peaches, lay. The red girder that fell on the five was wrapped in plastic and had been shifted to the side of the road.

Outside the hospital’s emergency ward stood Seema’s brother, Mohit Sharma (25), surrounded by friends and family. “My sister is a lecturer at a college in Sahibabad… she was on her way to work. She usually takes autos from our house in Murad Nagar to get there. This is gross carelessness on the DMRC’s part,” he claimed.

Gaur, a software engineer, was also on his way to work in Noida when the accident took place. His brother, Vikas, said, “He has fractured a leg, there’s a crack in the other leg, and he also has hip injuries. The doctors told us something went inside his stomach, too, and that it has been taken out. He’s in the ICU.”

Inside the ward, Khan, a resident of Ghaziabad’s Makanpur, lay in bed with a bandaged left leg, writhing in pain. “I was returning home from a job interview when the girder fell on my bike. I was under the girder and the vehicle was on top of me… locals rushed and helped me out,” he said.

On another bed lay autorickshaw driver Saroha, with stitches on his forehead and blotches of blood on his grey uniform. “I was ferrying three passengers when the girder fell on us. I thought I was going to die… The woman passenger in my auto was in a bad shape… My auto is also beyond repair…who will pay for that?” he said.
Next to his bed was Gautam, a fruit seller who received minor injuries around his waist. “I was about to get out of the auto when it happened… I have lost so much money… all the fruit I was bringing from Meerut to sell in Mohan Nagar is lost.”