TEAM HERALD
CANACONA: Unlike many of his colleagues who lost their lives in the building under construction that collapsed at Chaudi on Saturday, a 24-year-old labourer from Gaondongrim, who was working on the top floor of the ill-fated four-storey building, was lucky to escape without any injury.
According to sources at CHC, Sanket Velip, who was in the Ruby Residency building at the time of its collapse, has no injuries at all, but was physically shaken and was later treated before he was allowed to go home on Saturday evening.
Another worker, Datta Velip from Gaondongrim, recuperating at CHC with leg injuries had a similar escape while working at the mezzanine floor of the ill-fated building. The four more lucky escapees are from Jharkhand, who had reportedly gone to have drinks at a nearby bar, before having lunch.
Sources informed that Sanket Velip was working at one of the top flats when the building began to fall apart and he was carried down slowly but with a heavy jerk.
Velip not knowing what to do and in a deep fear walked away from the site without anybody’s notice, before he got in touch with his friends and after narrating the incident to them, he was afraid to go back there and his friends took him to CHC.
At CHC, four other labourers from Jharkhand cried bitterly on seeing bodies of their colleagues. When asked, one of them said all four had gone to a bar to have drinks before having their lunch, but before they returned back to have food, they found the building collapsed.
“Hum toh bach gaye, lekin hamare sare dost andhar rehe gaye (we are saved but all our friends got trapped inside the building,” said a labourer.
Datta Velip, who sustained injuries to his injured, informed that he along with five others was concreting a gutter underneath the collapsed building. “Others had just moved out to bring mud brick and I had just step on one side to lift something when the building came crumbling down,” said Velip.
“My leg was caught inside the gutter, after some debris came on it, and while I was trying to free myself, more debris came and fell on my other leg, and I was trapped.”
“My colleagues and others rushed and pulled me out,” added Velip.
Meanwhile, INTUC leaders have complained of human rights violations by not making food provisions to over 40 labourers, who are now stranded without work and caretaker after the tragedy struck at the Ruby Residency on Saturday.
INTUC Goa State chief V P Nair rushed to Canacona on learning that about 40 labourers are left to fend their own fate since their day-to-day earning came to a halt since Saturday afternoon.
According to Naik, more than 40 workers are starving outside the gate of Ruby Residency.
When contacted, Canacona Mamlatdar Ravishekar Nippanikar said 50 lunch packs were already provided to these labourers on Sunday. “I have been told that all of them had lunch packs today,” added Nipanikar.
