Pune building collapse: When Kambles’ dream turned into debris

The dream of living in a decent home turned into a nightmare for the Kamble family on Monday, after the rescue team was unable to save their 12-year-old daughter Nayana from the debris of collapsed building at Taljai Pathar. 

Nagesh and Laxmi Kamble along with their four daughters – Neelam (14), Nayana (12), Namrata (6) and Sayali (5) had shifted to the ill-fated home in the unfinished building on September 10, just a few metres away from their old residence. The under-construction building is owned by former corporator Sanjay Nande and Lahu Sawant.

Hailing from Battish Shirala in Sangli, Nagesh, who works as a porter in Chhatrapati Shivaji Market Yard, had gone to his hometown, while his wife Laxmi was on duty at a city mall on the fateful day.

On hearing the news of her daughters being trapped under the debris of the under-construction building, Laxmi rushed home. When asked about her daughters, a distraught Laxmi said, “As their father is away in Sangli, Nayana stayed back home to look after Namrata and Sayali.”

She had picked up her younger sisters after their school and the three were home having lunch when the building collapsed.
Fortunately, the elder daughter Neelam, who is studying in standard IX, was at school, and came home only around 4.30pm.

When she got to know that her three younger sisters were under the debris, Neelam wailed incessantly asking her neighbours to rescue her sisters, as she could not live without them. She hugged her mother and both broke down.

After the fire brigade personnel along with men of the National Disaster Response Force rescued Namrata and Sayali alive, the mother and daughter accompanied the injured girls to the hospital.

Despite hectic efforts, they were unable to save Nayana as the team could not remove the debris without risking her life.
A neighbour of the Kamble family, Nanekar, said that the impact of the building’s collapse was so frightful that his grandchildren were very frightened and had to be taken away from the area to recover from shock.