Survived, yet agonised
Brother's death in building collapse haunts 20yr-old mason
Shamim Ashraf
Rinku finds no joy in his miraculous survival, not even that of his father, from death in the dreadful debris of the collapsed multi-storey Phoenix building."There is no consolation in surviving while leaving brother to die before my eyes," Rinku said, showing a photograph of his 18-year-old brother Nikhil. "I escaped death miraculously and came out of the debris but failed to bring my brother out. "My brother asked me to save my own life. Nobody can imagine how hard it is to bear with this memory," the 20-year-old helper of a mason said, struggling in vain to hold back his tears. "When I asked Nikhil for going out to have breakfast at 10:35 that morning, he wanted me to go after 11:00am because the contractor would scold," Rinku said while talking to this correspondent at their Dakkhinpara house in Mohakhali yesterday. While tearing down a wall on the east side of the building, the brothers all of a sudden saw a tide of dust falling from above. "I thought the wall above was collapsing and asked Nikhil to jump while jumping myself out of the room," Rinku said. "The place soon plunged into darkness." Not finding Nikhil beside him, Rinku called out for his brother. "He responded to my call and said a heavy concrete slab fell on his left arm, pinning him to the ground. I tried to pull him out but failed." Nikhil told his elder brother to leave hope of rescuing him and go for a safer place. "He was crying while speaking to me," Rinku said. Suranjan Mistri, father of the two who had been sitting beside, burst into tears hearing Rinku describing possibly the last moments of his younger son. Later, another concrete slab fell on Rinku and he lost consciousness. Rescuers recovered him unconscious an hour later with injuries all over his body, particularly the right thigh and shoulder. Suranjan, also a mason's helper, was hammering the building from outside and was also trapped as debris fell on him. Locals rescued him immediately. The father and his two sons, who hail from Karamjabunia village of Mirzaganj, Patuakhali, would generally work together. "I went there again on Sunday morning and tried to enter the wreckage to rescue Nikhil but the rescuers dragged me out," Rinku said. A grieved Suranjan was seen yesterday afternoon walking despondently about the site of the collapsed building, showing Nikhil's photograph to the rescuers and asking if they saw his son.
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