Grief weighs heavy on BJMC Foundation Day

An air of grief hung heavy on the campus of the BJ Medical College and Hospital on Monday, with wailing kin awaiting identification of their loved ones who perished in the 12 June Air India plane crash, and medics who lost their colleagues in the tragedy bravely soldiering on.

- 

Except that today is not an ordinary day in the academic calendar of this nearly 150-year-old medical institution, which annually marks 16 June as its foundation day.

The Ahmedabad air tragedy, which claimed the lives of all but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board, and several others on the ground, has left deep scars on BJMC's residential quarters and the psyche of the survivors.

The London-bound flight AI171 -- Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 -- crashed moments after taking off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport here on Thursday afternoon, and fell onto the campus of the medical college in the Meghaninagar area, before going up in flames.

On that fateful day, many medical students and resident doctors had just sat for meals at the hostel mess of the BJMC, when the tail-side portion of the aircraft rammed into it, turning an ordinary lunch hour into a horrific nightmare.

Besides the 241 fatalities on board, another 29 persons, including five MBBS students, on the ground were killed in the Air India plane crash.

Soon after the crash, pieces of wreckage of the aircraft lay strewn around the hostel area, while thick layers of soot are still deposited on its buildings, damaged as a result of the crash.