Comments
“She's died, she's died,” wailed the father of a 15-year-old victim, on the phone as he broke the news to others back home.
Chaos reigned at the AMRI Hospital as desperate relatives searched frantically for their loved ones, while others came to terms with their shock, grief, disbelief and anger.
Grief gave way to anger for many as news poured in that many more may have been saved, had some local youth, who had rushed to offer their help, been allowed in.
“The security guards refused to let us in saying that they had the situation under control,” said Mr Raju Mondal. As matters got out of hand and the calls for help increased, they rushed inside the compound. Bed-sheets, dangling limply from the windows of the seven-storied building besides the ladders later brought in, are a sign of what might have been accomplished.
Relatives, searching desperately for their loved ones, had a difficult time as the hospital authorities provided little information. The patients had been moved to five hospitals across the city, but there was scant information on who was taken where.
The soot-covered bodies were lined up in the wards, near the corridors, at the morgue for relatives to search through.
More than eight hours after the fire broke out, the relatives of 34-year-old Chandrani Saha had no clue about where they may find her. “She had been in a car accident on two days ago and her leg had been operated on. She could not even walk and her name is not there on any list,” her sister said.
Scenes at the Morgue
The scenes at the morgue of the State-run SSKM Hospital (formerly called PG Hospital) were even more chaotic.
The Chief Minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee, was herself supervising the operations, but relatives of victims alleged gross mismanagement. Even as the crowds of onlookers swelled as the day wore on, intermittent announcements would come up on the megaphone about which body will be taken up for autopsy next.
The kin of the dead spent agonising long hours at the hospital waiting for the formalities to be conducted, before they could take them away.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.