'It was the scariest moment of my life'

Yasmin Vasanwala recalls how she held on to her 29-day-old baby and escaped while her house hung precariously

When 29-day-old Sakina Vasanwala grows up, she is bound to hear tales of her miraculous escape from Yusuf Manzil.
u00a0
The 104-year-old building at Lamington Road collapsed on Tuesday evening killing one, but among the several people rescued was Sakina.

Matter of seconds

Sakina's mother Yasmin (28) was giving her a bath in their second floor flat when the six-storey building started trembling.

When the front portion of the building started falling apart, Yasmin's husband Mohammad, a software engineer, alerted the mother to run towards the bedroom.

Yasmin held Sakina tightly in her hand and ran for her life. But with every step she took, she could see cracks developing on the walls and floor.



"It was the scariest moment of my life. I was running with my baby in my arms and the floor behind was giving way.
u00a0
It was just a matter of seconds. Had I been a second late, I don't know where my baby and I would have been today," recalled Yasmin, a housewife.

Yasmin who stays in Virar had come to her mother's house in Yusuf Manzil for delivery and had stayed for a year.

No movement

Yasmin's heart skipped a beat while she and her parents Razia and Yunus Motiwala waited inside the bedroom for help. Sakina was not moving.
u00a0
"I even thought I had lost my baby, as she was neither crying nor moving. But then my mother patted her hard and she started crying. I was relieved on hearing her voice," added Yasmin.

Fire officials rescued the family in 20 minutes. "We have lost everything, I don't have any clothes to wear. I am wearing the same clothes that I had worn on the day of the collapse.

We need the government to help us. The electronics store owner and the landlord who allowed him to undertake construction work are at fault.

Had they not demolished the staircase, we would not have seen this day," said Yunus.

Yasmin said that because the staircase was demolished, they had to go to the third floor and pass through the house of a resident whose flat was connected to another one in the adjacent building. she feels sad that her baby had to undergo such trauma and will take her to Virar in a few days.
u00a0
In the meantime, they are staying at Razia's sister's home in Mazgaon. The family was allotted a single room flat by MHADA in the transit camp at Dharavi, but they are not happy with the arrangements.

Shop Owner in trouble

The police said a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder has been registered against the shop owner and he would be arrested soon.

"Despite repeated instructions from MHADA and BMC to stop the construction work, the owner failed to do so which led to the collapse," said Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjay Mohite