‘Papa was sole breadwinner, used to work overtime’: Son of driver who died in airport collapse

The roof collapse at the Delhi airport’s Terminal 1 has left at least one dead and around eight injured. The Narendra Modi government has announced Rs 20 lakh in compensation for the family of the deceased and Rs 3 lakh each for those injured.

The deceased has been identified as Ramesh Kumar, a resident of Rohini who was a cab driver and was crushed under a support beam. The vehicle was owned by one Umit Singh, who told Newslaundry that he tried to reach out to Kumar’s family but did not have their contact details.

Kumar’s son Ravindra said the family only got a call from the police at 4 pm, saying that his body is in Safdarjung Hospital and will be handed over after a postmortem. He said his father was the sole breadwinner of the family. “We are four siblings and our elder sister is going to get married this year, for which papa used to work overtime.”

Among the eight injured was Santosh Kumar Yadav, a taxi driver, who was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital with a head injury. “At 5 in the morning, I had gone to drop a passenger to the airport and was waiting for the next passenger…suddenly the roof and pillar fell down. I left the car and ran, but an iron rod fell on my head,” he said, adding that police and fire service teams came to the spot around 30 minutes later amid “chaos”.

Union civil aviation minister K Rammohan Naidu met him at the hospital and enquired about his health, Yadav said. 

Arvind, a 34-year-old contractual cleaning staffer at the airport, was also among the injured. He was taken to the ESI hospital with head and back injuries, and said the police and airport staff helped him get treatment. Meanwhile, Yogesh Dhawan, a management executive employed at the airport who was also among the injured, refused to speak to Newslaundry citing his job.

In a statement, a spokesperson of the GMR Airport Infrastructure Limited-led Delhi International Airport Limited said that “while the cause for the collapse is being assessed, the primary cause seems to be the continued heavy rainfall over the past few hours”. “This is the highest 24 hours rain in Delhi in June after 1936, the average rainfall in the area in the last 30 years is 75.2 mm.”

“Rescue operations were launched immediately by the Delhi Airport Emergency Response Team, including firefighting, medical team and operations, who provided all necessary support and assistance. Evacuation of passengers and all other individuals from T1 was the first priority and complete evacuation has been undertaken.”

The statement said that four vehicles were damaged and eight individuals received “minor injuries” and were provided immediate medical assistance “at the Medanta Centre at Delhi Airport. The injured have been shifted to ESI Hospital and Indian Spinal Injury Centre (later they were referred to Safdarjung Hospital) for further medical supervision, as required. Unfortunately, one fatality was reported in the incident.”

As a precautionary measure, all flight operations from Terminal 1 have been suspended till further notice and rescheduled by the respective airlines to operate from Terminal 2 and Terminal 3, till the impacted areas are restored for operations, it said.

“A technical committee has been formed by DIAL to investigate the cause of the incident and will give the report as soon as possible. In addition, DIAL is working with all relevant agencies, including Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Bureau of Civil Aviation (BCAS), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Delhi Police and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are jointly working to assess the situation and restore operations.”

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