As fire broke out at the Crystal Tower in Parel, Mumbai on Wednesday morning, a 10-year-old girl helped save the lives of several residents using her disaster management training. Zen Gunratan Sadavarte, a student of class VI, assisted with the evacuation and used fire safety tips to get her neighbours to safety.
Using her quick-thinking, Sadavarte fashioned air filters out of cloth and gave them to her neighbours to avoid smoke inhalation. She told ANI, “When the fire is rising, it contains a lot of smoke. Smoke means carbon, which means there’s no oxygen. I gathered my strength seeing people in panic. I remained calm and got some clothes and made small handkerchief out of them and added water into it. By adding water it became like a purifier. I convinced people to breathe through it to save them from inhaling carbon so that they do not suffocate and become sick.”
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Zen Gunratan Sadavarte, a 10-year-old girl helped in evacuation operation during the fire that broke out in Mumbai’s Crystal Tower, today, says. ‘I convinced people to put wet cloth on their face so that they do not suffocate. I had done a research on this.’ #Maharashtra pic.twitter.com/9Gk7vgDao2
— ANI (@ANI) August 22, 2018
According to Sadavarte, she was sleeping when her mother alerted her about the smoke. When they learnt about the fire, she alerted her neighbours and asked them to move to a gallery safely. She said she learnt these disaster management tips in class 3, which happened to come in handy.
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The fire reportedly started due to faulty wiring on the 12th floor of the 17-storey residential complex and spread rapidly to the upper floors. Arond 20 fire tenders rushed to the spot to douse the flames while a firefighters deployed a crane to rescue residents. Four people lost their lives, while 16 others were injured.
