Elphinstone Road stampede: Residents of Lower Parel Railway Colony first to provide assistance

Elphinstone Road station stampede: Relatives of victims at the KEM Hospital. (Express Photo: Prashant Nadkar)

While heavy rainfall is not an unusual phenomenon in Mumbai, residents who witnessed the incident said the stampede could have occurred because of women carrying large bundles of flowers and leaves for the ongoing Navaratri celebrations.

“A little of many factors could have caused the stampede. There was a lot of traffic on the road near the Dadar flower market, due to which a lot of women were bringing their flowers on trains. We also heard that a fisherwoman’s basket had toppled and people slipped on the fish that fell on the already-slippery floor,” said 65-year-old Vimala Gail, another resident. Mumbai horror: At least 22 dead, 39 injured in rush hour stampede at Elphinstone foot overbridge

Another resident, S R Tripathi (58), who stays on the second floor and is a railway official, was among those who rushed to help people. “I and a few others dragged some bodies out. A lot of people were banging on the tin sheets so we borrowed a hammer from the building residents and tore open the sheet. When we removed the sheet, we found people’s heads were stuck under the railing and others were stepping on them. We pulled out a couple of bodies from the gap. It was a gruesome sight,” he said.

Tripathi said he pulled out around eight bodies — two persons were alive when they were pulled out from under the crowd but died before they could be taken to hospital. He added that some of the bodies were sent to KEM Hospital in the ambulance that is always parked near the staircase. Others were sent to hospitals in taxis.

Elphinstone Road station stampede: Relatives of victims at KEM hospital. (Express Photo by Nirmal Harindran)

While most men tried to pull out those who had passed out due to suffocation, many women rushed to give drinking water to those affected.

“A lot of difference could have been made had the authorities reached on time. While the people were stuck trying to descend, since it was peak hour, a lot of people were trying to get to the station using the staircase and started walking over those trapped. Had ambulances arrived sooner, some could have been saved,” said Sangeeta Kumbhar (37), another resident of the colony. Also Read: Elphinstone foot overbridge a huge mismatch: 1972 bridge, 2017 crowd 1 lakh a day

According to the police, the stampede was triggered by heavy downpour that made commuters exiting the bridge stay put. “Since the FoB has a roof, commuters who were exiting the bridge stayed put to avoid getting drenched in the rain. But they were pushed by those who were either trying to get in or get out of the bridge. During this pull and push, one of the female commuters slipped and that led to the stampede,” said a senior official said.

Police officers, however, said that minutes after the railway officials posted at Elphinstone and Parel stations noticed the chaos, Government Railway Police (GRP) teams were deployed. The local police also reached the spot. Both the GRP and the city police carried out the rescue operations and rushed the victims to the nearby KEM Hospital. But many were already dead or declared dead by the hospital.