'Loud explosion', grim scenes at plane crash site haunt survivors

Locals recount injuries, close shaves and heroic acts during tragedy in Ahmedabad

- Debarshi Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD - Mrs Raginiben Rajput was at work on June 12, rolling out perfectly round chappatis in the mess of Byramjee Jeejeebhoy (BJ) Medical College in Ahmedabad, in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

It was something she had done for more than 15 years as a cook there, and she expected it to be just another day as usual.

So did Mr Shravan Chunilal Rana, a third-year medical student at the college, who had just begun eating his lunch of dal, chappati and curd.

The chatter of young students enjoying their lunch break echoed in the large dining hall, as did the clatter of steel utensils.

But at around 1.40pm, the lunchtime calm was torn asunder when an Air India Dreamliner jet with 242 passengers and crew crashed into the sprawling campus of the medical college soon after taking off from the nearby airport. Parts of the plane's fuselage hit the mess building as well.

Mrs Rajput, 43, remembers a loud explosion, as if a bomb had gone off.

A cloud of dust engulfed the mess and its kitchen. "We could not see anything. It was difficult to breathe," said Mrs Rajput.

As the dust began settling, she fled from the second floor using the staircase, falling while trying to run for her life and injuring her spine.

While fortunate to be alive, she is emotionally scarred too, and uncertain of when she will heal from the trauma caused by the incident.

"Even when I sleep at night, I still hear the explosion," Mrs Rajput told The Straits Times on the phone from her home, where she is recovering after being discharged from the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad that is attached to the medical college.

"Never in my dreams had I thought a plane would fall on us."

Mr Rana, 24, too is recovering from injuries to his head and knees.

He said it was only when he came out of the building that he realised he had been at the site of a plane crash: "Until then, it felt as if an earthquake had struck."