`People are dying, please do something’

The scene was pretty much the same at many of the forty buildings that collapsed, as the district administration, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the calamity, failed to cope with the situation.

Neighbours and eye-witnesses said the newly constructed peach-coloured Shikhar Apartments collapsed like a pack of cards, trapping the residents inside. Rescue workers and volunteers tried to clear debris all day in an effort to reach the victims.

The Pushpam Apartments, near Xavier’s college, was reduced to a heap of rubble. A handful of firemen with crowbars and shovels hopelessly tried to cut through a concrete slab. They could hear a man calling for help from beneath the rubble, but even after six hours they could not rescue him. Fire Brigade officials said four more people, including two children, were buried and their fate yet unknown.

At 10-storey Mansi Apartment in Vastrapur, where an entire flank had given way in the earthquake, wailing relatives waited to get some news of their dear ones. As volunteers brought out bodies of two women from under the rubble, everyone rushed to have a look. The relatives of the women wailed; others retreated quietly, hoping their family members might still come out alive.

At Mansi, most of the victims were those who rushed down the stairs when the quake struck. Then the staircase collapsed, cutting off their flight to safety. People who rushed from nearby areas used ladders and ropes to rescue many of them. A middle-aged man, who had just been rescued from the rubble, was too dazed to react, his pyjamas and vest covered in dust.

At Gulbai Tekra, an old bunaglow simply came crashing down. Hundreds of people gathered there, but nobody knows whether anyone was trapped underneath. Neither anyone from the police or fire brigade bothered to check until evening.

At Nilima Park, behind Rasranjan, about 40 residents had a narrow escape when their apartment swayed with the quake and then tilted to one side, finally resting at an awkward angle.

In many high-rise buildings, frightened residents collected their valuables, left their flats and sat on roadsides. Others packed clothes and moved to their relatives’ smaller houses. At petrol-pumps, there were long queues of luggage-laden cars, filling their tanks for long journeys.