Death, desperation and race against time: Inside Kolkata's warehouse collapse

As rescue teams battled through the rubble of Kolkata's Taratala warehouse collapse, stories of survival, selfless volunteers and a city's resilience emerged.

In Short

• Three-storey warehouse collapsed in Taratala, killing 11
• Indian Army and NDRF lead coordinated multi-agency response
• Five arrests made for negligence and culpable homicide

In Kolkata’s Taratala, a three-storey under-construction warehouse has been reduced to a tangled mass of twisted steel and shattered concrete, where rescue teams continue combing through the rubble for a second consecutive day. The structure collapsed while overhead concrete casting was underway, killing 11 people and leaving more than 30 others rescued alive so far.

As I stood on Transport Depot Road near Brace Bridge, staring at the mangled heap of iron beams and pulverised concrete that had once been a three-storey warehouse, a cold knot tightened in my stomach.

When the news first reached me and I was preparing to report it, I felt a familiar sense of dread. My mind instantly went back to 2016, when I covered the devastating Posta Flyover collapse. I thought I had prepared myself for what lay ahead. But the moment I reached ground zero, the sheer scale of the devastation still left me stunned.

A RESCUE OPERATION LIKE NO OTHER

Amid the chaos, the swift arrival of the Indian Army and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) brought a measure of reassurance. In my two decades of reporting on disasters across West Bengal, I have rarely witnessed such a coordinated multi-agency response. The state government moved quickly to work with central forces, mobilising heavy cranes, earthmovers and specialised equipment from nearby locations with remarkable efficiency.

My video journalist, Suvojit Gain, and I hurried to set up our live position. Right in front of us, personnel from the NDRF's 2nd Battalion, led by Second-in-Command VN Parashar, were already climbing over the unstable debris.

Kolkata Police Commissioner Ajay Nand was on the ground, personally overseeing logistics and ensuring the rescue corridor remained unobstructed. For once, every cog in the machinery of disaster response seemed to move in sync.

After finishing my live broadcast, I walked to a nearby tea stall to buy a bottle of water. That was when I noticed a middle-aged man sitting silently on a plastic crate, his face buried in his hands as he wept.

I approached him cautiously. He introduced himself as Ujwal Kumar, an employee at a neighbouring firm. He told me he had been among the first to rush towards the building when the roof came crashing down, shattering the afternoon silence.

"I could hear them," he said, his voice breaking. "They were calling out from beneath the concrete slabs. I tried pulling away chunks of debris with my bare hands, but there was only so much I could do."

He recalled managing to pass a small bottle of water through a narrow gap to a trapped woman, who was later rescued alive. But it was the people he could not reach who haunted him. The burden of helplessness was etched across his face.

Around us, ordinary citizens had stepped in without hesitation. Some carried bottles of water and food. Others arrived with ropes, tools and whatever equipment they could gather. It was a reminder that, even in moments of unimaginable tragedy, humanity often responds before institutions do.

THE RESCUE INTENSIFIES

Since my first broadcast from the site, the magnitude of the disaster has only become clearer. The rescue operation has now entered its second gruelling day.

The official death toll has risen to 11, while more than 30 people have been rescued alive from beneath the rubble. Teams have worked relentlessly through the night, rotating in exhausting shifts.

Because the building collapsed while overhead concrete casting was in progress, many victims became trapped beneath layers of reinforced concrete and mangled steel. To locate survivors, the Army deployed Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR), while the NDRF used sniffer dogs and drones to scan the debris field.

Rescue teams carried out painstaking vertical drilling operations and used gas cutters to carve narrow access channels, often guided only by faint cries for help emerging from deep beneath the wreckage.

THE INVESTIGATION BEGINS

As rescue efforts continued, the focus also shifted towards accountability.

Kolkata Police registered a case on its own under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the Detective Department formally took over the probe.

Five people have been arrested so far: the land lessee, the structural engineer responsible for fabricating the iron framework, the site supervisor, the labour contractor and the broker who allegedly facilitated the civic sanction plans.

THE WEIGHT I CARRIED HOME

As darkness settled over Taratala and the rhythmic thud of earthmovers slowly faded into the night, I left the disaster site carrying a weight that no professional detachment could lighten.

As journalists, we are trained to observe, verify and document. We learn to tell stories of grief through cameras, microphones and notebooks. But some scenes refuse to remain confined to the pages of a report.

I could not shake off the echo of voices calling for help from beneath layers of concrete. Nor could I forget Ujwal's tear-filled eyes and the guilt he carried for lives he was powerless to save.

The collapsed warehouse now stands as a grim monument to negligence, a place where 11 lives were abruptly cut short and dozens of others were changed forever.

Yet what remains with me just as powerfully is something else: strangers distributing water to rescue workers and anxious families, volunteers offering whatever help they could, and exhausted rescuers, their clothes caked in dust and mud, refusing to stop searching.

In the middle of devastation, I witnessed the quiet resilience that defines Kolkata. Concrete may have crumbled that afternoon, but compassion did not. And sometimes, that is the only thing holding a city together.

- Ends