Kottayam: On Thursday morning, patients and bystanders waited for their turns at the toilet block of a three-storey building adjacent to ward 14 at Kottayam Government Medical College Hospital (MCH). There wasn’t the usual rush, all of them were patient. Suddenly, there was chaos. The structure just caved in. A loud thud shook them out of their wits.
Justin Varghese a bystander was one of the first responders at the scene and rescued the injured young girl. “I ran as soon as I heard the crash. People were running left and right, grabbing clothes and bags. I saw a hand sticking out from the rubble,” he recounts. “People told me not to go in — that it was risky. But I couldn’t walk away. I pulled out a girl, maybe 13, carried her on my shoulder. Then I helped two more people. One of them was a hospital staff who had fallen during the commotion.”
“All we heard was this massive crash,” recalled Shilpa, who was with her mother, a cancer patient. “People outside just started running, we could hear screams, no one knew what had happened. It felt like the whole building was going down.” There was no time to think.
“I just held on to my mother. We clung to each other and tried to find a safe place. Nurses moved us to the nearby operation theatre. We didn’t even realise there were people trapped in the washroom at first.” They realised with a chill that two people had entered the restroom moments before the collapse — a young girl and the mother of another patient.
The collapsed building at the Kottayam Medical College Hospital. Photo: Onmanorama.
There was some initial relief. Three of the injured people were saved. Two hours later, news trickled in about retrieving a woman from the rubble. Soon, the people in the wards knew that the crash had claimed one casualty; Bindu from Thalayolaparambu. She had come to take care of her daughter who awaits surgery.
Among those rescued was Aleena a Class 7 student, bystander to her grandmother in Ward 10. “She had gone to bathe,” says her cousin Jancy. “We heard the sound and the walls were shaking. My mother is bedridden. We didn’t know what to do. Nurses rushed in with stretchers and got us out. Later, we were told Aleena was in casualty with only minor injuries.”
Meanwhile, in Ward 2, Pyari was sitting with his son when he heard the commotion. “If the building was useless, what does that make us — the people using it? Why wasn’t it demolished earlier?” he asked.
For Latha, who had used the collapsed washroom minutes before the incident, the escape still feels surreal. “I’m just numb. I was inside not even ten minutes earlier. The next girl who went in was the one who got hurt,” she said.
The sudden collapse also triggered a medical emergency. A young boy, whose sister was waiting for surgery, had a seizure. “He was so frightened by the noise and panic. Their mother, who struggles to walk, had to take him for treatment. The girl was left in our care,” said Shilpa.