10-month-old baby and four-year-old child are miracle survivors of Thane building collapse

Thane: Ten-month-old Gudiya, found alive under rubble 29 hours after a seven-storey building collapsed in Thane, is well and being looked after by the staff at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Hospital in Kalwa, who named her. Her parents are untraced.

Four-year-old Sandhya Thakur didn't have to be named. She could tell her doctors who she is. Her mother is dead, her father and siblings are missing.

The two little girls miraculously survived a devastation that 73 other people did not.(Read) The illegally constructed building in the Mumbai suburb came down in such a mangled heap of steel and concrete that rescue workers were still cutting through it till this afternoon. The building had collapsed at 6.30 pm on Thursday.

Sandhya was brought to the Thane Civil Hospital early on Friday morning. She had spent hours buried under debris and dust has settled on the child's eyes. She is unable to open them. Doctors have conducted X-ray tests to check if she has any fractures in her body.

Sandhya's mother was brought to the same hospital two hours after the child, but she died.

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At the Kalwa hospital, the warden hopes Gudiya's mother will be found alive. "We have named her Gudiya (doll) because she looks like a doll. One of the patients at the hospital told us that her mother and aunt are trapped in the rubble. We hope they too are rescued and the child is reunited with them," she said.

Rescue work has now been completed at the site. Sixty-two people have been injured; some are still in hospital battling injuries. 

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Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan confirmed yesterday that the building was illegal and ordered an inquiry to determine why local officials did not spot the construction and stop it. The Deputy Municipal Commissioner and a senior cop from the local police station have been suspended. The two builders responsible for the disaster have been arrested. The police have filed a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against them.