Toddler rescued 29 hrs after collapse but no family to cheer

Mangalore Today News Network/DHNS

Thane, Apr 6, 2013: Cheers greeted rescuers after they safely pulled out a 10-month-old baby alive from the rubbles, 29 hours after a seven-storey building collapsed on Thursday.

Sadly, none of her family members were there to see the child’s miraculous rescue yesterday.

As nobody knows her name, she has been named ’Gudia’ by the staff of Chhatrapati Shivaji Memorial Hospital at Kalva where she is undergoing treatment.

’Gudia’ was lucky to have survived the tragedy which claimed 72 lives, including 22 women and 17 children, when the unauthorised building collapsed at Shil Phata in Mumbra near here on Thursday evening.

"We call her Gudia as we don’t know her name. She looks like a Gudia (doll) after all," said M Waghela, a hospital staff, while cradling the baby whose face is pockmarked with bruises.
"She has had milk and is much better now. She survived by God’s grace and with his grace we want her family to come and take her," said Waghela.

Waghela said one of Gudia’s neighbours has told hospital authorities that the toddler’s mother and aunt used to stay in the building but no one has yet turned up to claim her.

Another survivor Kutibi Shaikh, 65, was rescued from the rubble after being trapped for almost 30 hours. She was admitted to the CSM hospital late last night and is in shock but stable, doctors said.