On Friday, September 13, a sudden downpour turned a routine drive home for Nupur Bansal resident of K block, into a scene of chaos and fear. Nupur was driving home, when rain began to pour. She called her 10 year old son Arham at home and asked him to come outside with an umbrella. As he waited at the ramp, a catastrophic event unfolded.
Just as Nupur stopped the car outside her home and stepped out of the car, a massive Gulmohar tree, uprooted by the torrential rain, came crashing down, striking both mother and son. Witnesses described the loud crash that echoed through the neighborhood, followed by Nupur’s frantic screams. Residents rushed to help, but the downpour and fallen branches hampered their efforts.
The nearby guards and drivers quickly sprang into action. They collectively and carefully maneuvered through the debris to reach Arham first. They managed to pull him from between the branches, while Nupur remained trapped, her cries barely audible amid the chaos. The constant downpour was a deterrent on the rescue efforts. After ten harrowing minutes, the rescuers finally located her beneath the fallen tree. Earlier they mistook her cries for help as coming from inside the car. It was much later they realised that Nupur too was caught under the web of the uprooted tree branches.
The situation was further complicated as large branches fell, damaging nearby water lines and affecting water supply to Nupur’s house for days. The car that Nupur was driving was left a mangled wreck, a total loss, and both Nupur and Arham sustained injuries, leaving them traumatized by the suddenness of the incident.
This alarming event is not isolated; similar accidents have previously marred the community, including a recent near-miss in M3. When a tree branch fell on a resident’s parked BMW car and caused damage to it. Local residents are now calling for urgent action to assess the health of the aging trees and improve safety measures and pruning requests. As Nupur and Arham are undergoing their recovery, the question remains: how many more close calls must occur before preventative measures are put in place.
