Ahmedabad: 

eyewitnesses and local residents, who shared their experiences. A local said it felt like an earthquake as the aircraft, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, hit the medical college hostel mess. "Everything was destroyed in a few seconds. The aircraft turned into a burning ember. Fireballs fell from the sky and within no time such a cloud of flames and smoke rose that we could not understand anything," he said.

Seeing an aircraft fall from the sky can be a traumatic experience and the residents of Ahmedabad had to endure it as AI-171 enroute to London crashed into a medical college leaving 241 passengers and crew dead. A few went into deep shock and are yet to emerge out of it. The local councilor said the screams of passengers and victims on the ground still echoes in his ears. "We saw many bodies burning. We will not be able to forget the scene in our lifetime."

After the crash, next of kin of the deceased thronged the Civil Hospital where a large number of locals and RSS workers could be seen helping them. So far, DNA and blood samples of more than 200 people have been collected, but several bodies have been burnt beyond recognition.

  "This is probably the first accident after the 2001 Bhuj earthquake in Gujarat, in which lives have been lost on such a large scale. The pain of the accident is quite deep."

The horror of the crash can also be gauged from the fact that even the local police and fire brigade personnel were not able to handle the situation for the first few minutes.

Although over 24 hours have passed since the crash, a sense of fear and despair prevails among the locals. A woman said, "We never thought that something like this would happen in our area. Now if we see a plane flying in the sky, we get scared."

The locals emerged as the first responders at the crash site and several of them participated in the tough and traumatic rescue operation. Doctors, nursing staff and locals from nearby hostels and localities rushed towards the spot. A local youth said he and others put several people to the hospital in a car. "At that time no one knew who was alive and who was not. We just helped as human beings," he said.

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