November 29, 2008
Sonya Fatah THE TORONTO STAR
MUMBAI–Worried relatives and friends rushed to the city’s many hospitals yesterday, hoping their search for the missing would not take them down the road to the mortuary.
Police teams and paramilitary troops stood guard on the sprawling 26-hectare grounds of the 160-year-old Jamshedji Jijibhoy Hospital in the heart of Mumbai, keeping journalists at bay as family members gathered in the hospital’s lobby to pore over the lists of the dead at a makeshift control centre.
Many of the dead were brought to this hospital. Nurses helped people look for names but many were on a hospital-to-hospital hunt for loved ones who were still missing.
The smell of dead bodies hung heavily in the air just outside the hospital’s mortuary. A family huddled together, waiting to receive the body of a loved one. One man anxiously leaned over the information counter asking for help.
“I’ve been looking in all the hospitals. His name isn’t on any list. Can you help me find him?”
The harried man behind the desk replied: “The names are all on the list. I don’t have any other information.”
There were also many unidentified bodies, including those of two foreigners, waiting to be collected by the overworked mortuaries.
Throughout the day at the city’s southern hospitals – Breach Candy Hospital, St. George’s Hospital and Bombay Hospital – ambulances with wailing sirens brought in more casualties and injured folks as evacuation proceedings continued at the Oberoi hotel along Marine Dr.
Despite the additional pressure, however, hospital workers were efficient and tried their best to help the many on city-wide desperate searches.
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