Jayanta Ghorui was carrying the body of his three-year old niece to the crematorium on Wednesday evening and was too numb to rejoice the birth of another niece the same day.
Jayanta’s sister-in-law, Priyanka, gave birth to a girl at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital about two hours after her other daughter, Srijika, was declared dead on arrival at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital.
“I am carrying the body of my niece. I have heard about the birth of another niece but I am too much in grief to rejoice,” Jayanta told The Telegraph on Wednesday evening. “My sister-in-law and the child are doing well.”
Srijika and her maternal grandmother Champa Garai died after a part of an old, dilapidated building in north Kolkata’s Ahiritola where they lived collapsed on Wednesday morning, following overnight rain.
Srijika’s parents, Priyanka and Susanta, got trapped, too, but were rescued.
“My elder brother (Susanta) is crying inconsolably for his dead daughter. He has been discharged from hospital but is in a lot of pain,” said Prashanta, another brother.
Susanta lives elsewhere and went to the Ahiritola house to meet his wife and daughter.
Family members said Priyanka was not aware of the fate of her daughter and mother when she was rushed to the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, an hour-and-a-half after the collapse of the building.
Doctors who examined Priyanka in the emergency ward realised she was nine months’ pregnant and referred her to the department of gynaecology and obstetrics, where she was admitted under a team of doctors headed by Arup Majhi, the department’s head.
“Under normal circumstances we would not have considered an immediate procedure on the woman. But since the patient had suffered a fall and injuries, there was a risk to the baby,” said a doctor at the hospital.
After a few rounds of medication and counseling, Priyanka was wheeled into the labour room. She underwent a Caesarean section to deliver a girl child.
“The child weighs around 2.8kg. The mother and the child are doing fine,” said Sudipta Roy, the chairman of the Rogi Kalyan Samity of RG Kar hospital.