Elevators in this Noida residential society stopped working twice in the span of one day.
As cases of failing elevators increase with the proliferation of high-rise apartments in Delhi and its neighbouring cities, a video of a group of women and children being rescued at a building in Greater Noida has gone viral.
Three women and their little children were trapped for more than 30 minutes on Tuesday when the electricity went out and the elevator in their apartment building, the Panchsheel Hainish Society, stopped between two floors. The mothers had just brought the children home from school.
When the lift stopped, the women pressed the alarm, but it didn't work. The women and children kept screaming for help until the maintenance staff realized they were stuck and got to work.
A video shows them being pulled out of the elevator after the staff forced the door open. "Children first," said one of the women, handing over the children to attendants one by one before being pulled out. "We were stuck for half an hour," they were heard complaining after moments of panic and desperation.
A 58-year-old woman and another child had been stuck in the same way at the apartment the same morning.
The woman was taking her four-year-old grandson to the school bus stop when the elevator stopped.
"The bus driver waited, then called us. When we looked for them, we realized they were stuck in the elevator," said the woman's son Bhuvnesh Gautam.
It took 20 minutes to free them.