Bandra Relief Report

Everyone was struck by this disastrous news about a major tragedy in Bandra. A major fire broke out at Behrampada slums, Bandra (E), early Thursday morning leaving a year-old child dead and 29 others injured. Over 200 firemen worked around the clock to douse the fire. Fire officials said around 500 hutments were gutted rendering 2,500 people homeless.

The fire broke out at 3.30 am in the slums near Bandra station. The fire brigade rushed in 24 fire engines, 10 Jumbo water tankers and eight water tankers to fight the fire, which was finally extinguished on Thursday afternoon.

The magnitude of fire was so high Atmaram Shinde, deputy chief fire officer, who camped at the spot all night and through Thursday, said, “After the 1991 fire at Oberoi Hotel, this was the biggest fire we have seen. We had to take the help of private fire authorities.”

Most of the people including many women and innocent children, have lost everything in fire and are in urgent need of food, clothes and shelter although they have made temporary tents in near by small ground majority are on the roads.

It was a heartrending site to see so many people rendered homeless. Those affected have been temporarily accommodated in make-shift tents under, along the skywalk, some of them have been accommodated in huge tents constructed on the open ground adjacent to the National Girls Junior College while still some have been temporarily put up in National Girls Junior College itself. There were also quite a few who were camping on the roads.

As you must be aware, most of the people including many women and innocent children, have lost almost everything in fire It was quite embarrassing to see women and young girls lying on the floors and along the roads, it was extremely touching to see young children moving around aimlessly and tiny toddlers crawling around, and you couldn’t help feeling sorry for the dejected men.

AMP members were there for 3 days providing Relief services working in association with members of AAA Foundation the community service arm of Zodiac. They were working relentlessly to provide relief to the fire victims and a set of Mat, shirt (Zodiac branded), Maxi (night gown) for ladies and lungis for men were distributed.

Some of our members had helped out the AAA Foundation in conducting Relief Activities over there. We need to thank them all for the hard work they have put in.

Firstly about AAA Foundation.
AAA Foundation is the Community Service arm of Zodiac. (The apparel brand)

The Relief Materials distributed were,
A set of- Mats, Shirts(Zodiac Branded shirts) , Ladies Night gown (Maxi) and Lungi.

Total Materials Disbursed.

Relief Materials Distributed	Total Quantity (in numbers)
Mats (Chatai)	1435
Lungis	1200
Shirts	1100
Maxi	757

The relief work got tremendous response with many people queuing up at the distribution counter which we had set up at National Girls Junior College and Polytechnic.

There was initially a huge gathering of people and things were kept under control with great difficulty and an enormous effort by our volunteers over there.

Javed Sayed, one of our AMP members got a call from one masjid in Goregaon East that there was a room full of articles including books, clothes etc) for the Fire victims which were collected over there. He immediately arranged for a Tempo at his own expense and had the relief materials personally delivered to Bandra. He camped there for more than 3 hours personally distributing the relief materials.

From AAA Foundation we had
Sameeya Shaikh - Trust Coordinator for all the Community Service Activities of Zodiac.
Ejaz and Azhar - Support Staff.
Taufiq Sahab and Sattar Sahab - Senior Gentlemen Associated with AAA Foundation.

From AMP we had Fairoz and Ejaz Patel helping out with the relief work.

We also had some local volunteers like Salim Bhai, Kalim Bhai who are associated with the National Girls Junior college, Mrs.Noori and Mr.Sikander and a couple of other girls and boys who were locals from the nearby areas helping us with the Relief Work.

All in all the things went well, I would not say smoothly but yes managed very well by the AAA/ AMP volunteers present there, inspite of the tuff challenges associated with this kind of Relief Work. These people worked relentlessly to try and reduce the sufferings of the innumerable people rendered homeless. It was deeply touching to see the state and suffering of, the so many men, women and innocent children. Some tiny toddlers, some school going kids, some of them quite aged, some expectant mothers, some injured. It was both moving as well as embarrassing to see families especially young girls lying sullenly , scattered on the floors of the school building, in make shift tents on the ground, below the skywalk and on the roadside.

There was a lot of burnt debris scattered on the roads, there were police personnel and an unending line of Fire Engines and Fire Brigade personnel camping there continuously since the start of the fire and finally the burnt houses of people which are no more worth staying and been termed as dangerous structures and would be razed down sooner or later.

Effective support from the ground administration:
The efforts of Fire Brigade personnel and the police personnel are truly commendable, they camped over there continuously and tirelessly, day in and day out and were quite vigilant and supportive as well.

At the same time, it was heartwarming to see quite a few of Relief committees working for the benefit of these Fire victims. It was observed that though quite a few organizations are helping with Food, clothes and utensils, as of now hardly any organization seemed to have donated any books. In fact National Girls College has already started its academics.

AMP has decided that we would donate a set of books including note books of 100/ 200 pages, and long books as well. The approximate cost per set comes to Rs.200. It has been observed that around 500 houses have been destroyed and some families have 2/3/4/5/6 kids as quite a few were staying together as joint families and even if take an average of 3 sets per house the approximate cost comes to Rs.3 lakhs (Rs.200 per set X 3 sets X 500 houses)

This report will be updated from time to time.

AMP aiming relentlessly to try and bring some difference in the lives of people. This is not the only task we are working on, there have been quite a few activities we have undertaken in the past and there will be various activities undertaken in future as per the need of the hour.

One factor is for certain in our endeavor…. Your continued support is invaluable to us and very vital for us to undertake our mission and achieve our vision.

We are Indians, We are human, We are one!!!