Rescue operation underway after a building collapsed near Satya Niketan in South-West Delhi, New Delhi, on September 06, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap
Krishna Bhardwaj, a first responder from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh who was in Delhi campaigning for the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections, was among those who rushed to the site after the building collapsed on Sunday (September 6, 2026). He said he and around 25-30 members of his team began pulling students out of the debris even before police and fire personnel arrived.Also Read : Delhi building collapse LIVE“We were among the first to reach the spot. There were no police or fire personnel present when we started the rescue,” he said, adding that his team alone managed to rescue four people from the rubble.One rescue attempt has stayed with him. Mr. Bhardwaj said he was pulling a student out of the debris when the boy held his hand and pleaded, “Bhaiya, please mujhe bacha lo” (Brother, please save me).“I told him, ‘You will be okay,’ and pulled him out,” Mr. Bhardwaj said. It was only later that he learnt that the boy he had tried to save had died. “I later found out he was the one who died,” he said, pausing and sighing.Mr. Bhardwaj was injured during the rescue operation when a stone fell on his foot while he was trying to remove a body from the debris. He was subsequently taken to a hospital for treatment.He recalled another rescue in which a student survived after a table fell over him and shielded him from the collapsing structure. “We found a book next to him. A table had fallen on him, and that saved him,” he said. The student was pulled out and administered CPR.Mr. Bhardwaj said he was told that seven students had been shifted to the hospital, with the number of injured and dead still being assessed. He also alleged that many buildings in the area were unauthorised and had been operating on “fake NOCs”, leaving students living in unsafe accommodation.Eyewitness accounts reveal alarming safety concernsDal Bahadur, who runs a music shop in the colony, said the building had remained closed for nearly two years before reopening about a year ago. According to him, work had been under way in the basement for the past two months, with labourers regularly removing mud and debris.“This building was closed for two years. It opened only about a year ago, and then the owner started building shops in the basement,” he said. He recalled seeing trucks carrying away mud and stones excavated from the basement over the past few weeks.Dhruv Singh Bhatia, a third-year student of Motilal Nehru College, had visited the building just two days before the collapse to check on first-year students from his college who were living there. Students from the college regularly visit juniors staying in PGs in the area to hear about accommodation-related problems and raise them with the authorities, he said.“It is scary that I was here just two days ago. Around 15-16 students here were from our college. A total of 30-35 students were living in the five-storey building. Three-four students in just one room-kitchen set up,”he said.During his visit, students had complained about loud construction work in the basement. According to Dhruv, the owner was getting the basement cleaned, allegedly to turn it into a shop or use the space for commercial purposes. Water had also accumulated on the basement floor, he said.“What struck him most was the condition of the building. ‘The rooms were very small. There were three or four beds in one tiny room, and the entry was very narrow. The building itself was very cramped,’ he said.”He recalled damp walls, or seelan, throughout the building and said the structure appeared extremely old and poorly maintained. After hearing the students’ complaints about the work in the basement, Dhruv said they had decided to wait and see if the situation improved. “We told the students, ‘Let’s see for one or two days and see what happens.’ And this happened,” he said. Published - September 06, 2026 06:47 pm IST
