No Water In Hostel, Student Went To Friend's House For Bath. It Saved Him

A student who lived in the paying guest building in the national capital that collapsed yesterday, killing seven, would have become a part of statistics had he got water in the taps. The providential turn of events that put first-year student Sana Varsh out of harm's way unfolded the moment he decided to take a bath.

But the taps had run dry.

Varsh, 18, lived in a shared room on the third floor of the five-storey building in southwest Delhi's Satya Niketan, a neighbourhood popular with students due to its proximity to colleges.

He said he decided to go to a friend's house to freshen up and left just 15 minutes before the building fell, trapping and killing many.

"If there was water in the tap I would have been buried under debris," Varsh said. "I went to a friend's place to freshen up and the building collapsed."

The student of Motilal Nehru College said the building always looked like it would crumble any moment. "I used to joke to my friends, will the building collapse?" Varsh, who came to Delhi University from West Bengal's Alipurduar district, told NDTV.

The building was said to be at least 50 years old. Varsh said he was still at his friend's house when the building caved in. "I had been hearing noises from the basement since morning," he said.

"I even asked a friend jokingly whether the building would collapse. Both of us had a good laugh over it," he said with a very human confidence in the inability to see the future.

Following the tragedy, Varsh said he rushed back to the site and started looking for some of his missing friends. He went to AIIMS later to check on the injured students who had been brought there for treatment.

Varsh said the paying guest, though old, had renovated its rooms a few months ago. He said the stairs that led to his room on the third floor seemed unplanned due to its narrow width and dampness.

"I used to tell my friends that one day I would fall down from these stairs and die," he said.

Each floor had two rooms and the students paid Rs 14,000 per person. The charges for electricity came separately. And each room had space for a pair of beds, cupboards, chairs and tables. They shared a common bathroom, he said.

Varsh said all his belongings including important documents are still under the rubble. Two of his flatmates, Nitish and Neeraj, have not been discharged yet from AIIMS due to the serious nature of their injuries.

"I don't know if we will get our security deposit back," he said.

The tragedy has left many families across the country devastated. Among them are the families of Arpit Jaj, who was from Madhya Pradesh's Dewas, and Yuvraj Soni, who was a resident of Chhattisgarh's Durg.

Both had visited their homes a few days earlier to celebrate Raksha Bandhan.