Sunita Kumari’s world came crashing down after the Delhi police broke to her the news of her husband’s death, along with two other labourers, in a wall collapse at a construction site in Vasant Vihar.
Ms. Kumari was living with her husband Dayaram, 45, in a shack built close to the wall. The two other victims were also living nearby in similar structures.
A resident of Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi, she said when the intensity of rainfall increased in the early hours of Friday, a chunk of the wall fell on their makeshift homes around 5.30 a.m. due to which they were trapped under the rubble.
“Within minutes, the whole wall came down. Even the rainwater that had accumulated at the site came rushing in and nearby trees were also uprooted,” she said.
“The crash awakened the other workers who were living at a distance from them. They pulled me out with the help of a rope while my husband and two others remained trapped under the rubble,” she added.
Ms. Kumari said she and another woman worker were taken to the police station since they had nowhere to go.
After a 28-hour rescue operation that ended on Saturday afternoon, the workers’ bodies were pulled out from under the rubble, which was lifted with the help of cranes.
‘Labour laws violated’
According to officials, the death of the labourers could have been averted had labour norms been followed. “The workers were living in shanties next to the under-construction building in violation of the norms,” said an official.
Following a series of deaths in mishaps at construction sites, the Delhi government had earlier issued safety guidelines, calling for proper barricading, the installation of signages, and a provision for workers’ accommodation in a separate enclosure.
The police have registered a case under IPC Sections 288 (negligent conduct with respect to pulling down or repairing buildings) and 304A (causing death by negligence).
