Students look for laptops, workers worry about office servers

New Delhi: On Monday morning, a group of employees of a healthcare AI firm waited for updates on their damaged servers at the Saidulajab building collapse site. Some students were also at the spot. They peered under the rubble, hoping to recover laptops, phones and many months’ worth of study material.Some of the students of the coaching centres have exams in less than a month.While they waited, excavators sifted through the concrete and twisted metal, two days after the building collapse that has claimed six lives so far.“The collapse damaged a portion of our office where our servers were kept. All our systems have been down since then,” said an employee. They were denied access to the site for safety reasons. “We are trying to shift operations to another location,” he said. On Saturday, this employee narrowly escaped the collapse. “I got the office cleaned around 6.40 pm on Saturday and left with the cleaning staff just an hour before the collapse,” he said.At least 100 Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) aspirants have belongings buried under the rubble. The students were hoping to recover their laptops, phones, important documents and months’ worth of study material. Rescue personnel were also seen retrieving several laptops.“We were all in the library when the collapse happened. We ran out without thinking about our belongings,” said one FMGE aspirant.Eyewitnesses spoke about a man who reportedly entered a narrow gap beside the building to take out his motorcycle moments before the collapse. He has not been seen since.The locality is a major hub for students from across the country. The libraries and mess facilities service the local economy of coaching institutes . Medical, engineering and civil services aspirants frequent this area daily.“UPSC aspirants, engineering graduates and medical students study here, with some as young as 15 or 16 preparing for competitive examinations such as NEET,” said 16-year-old Arjun Tanwar. Many of these students live in nearby PG accommodations.Residents said the incident has heightened concerns about unchecked construction in the area. “There are several such buildings and this has become a huge cause of worry for everyone living and working here,” said Mohammad Akvar (51), who works in an office nearby. The area has undergone rapid transformation. “I have lived here for 40 years. Over the years, many seven and eight-storey buildings have come up,” said 70-year-old Mangeshwar Paswan.Several residents questioned the quality of the construction, pointing to the thin iron rods and improperly cemented walls visible in the debris. Others said that a four-storey building in the same lane had been constructed in just two to three months, raising concerns about compliance and safety.