10 stuck in office lift for two hours

Around 9.30,am Vishal Bhardawaj,along with two colleagues at ICFWAI,walked into the elevator in their office premises at Krishna Apra Plaza in Sector-18,Noida.

Around 9.30,am Vishal Bhardawaj,along with two colleagues at ICFWAI,walked into the elevator in their office premises at Krishna Apra Plaza in Sector-18,Noida. They,however,reached their office only around noon,after spending more than two hours trapped in the lift with seven others after a power failure.

The lift going to the third floor when it stopped. Usually when there is a power failure,it restarts and goes back to the ground floor. But when nothing happened,we pressed the alarm button. No one came for over half an hour, said Bhardawaj.

Then suddenly the lift plummeted,screeching its way down and coming to halt between the first and the second floors. By now,colleagues of those stuck inside had gathered outside the elevator,witnesses said.

Liftman and other maintenance workers tried restart the lift,but failed. The employees at the plaza then called the fire brigade and the police.

According to eyewitnesses,the maintenance staff of the building managed to farce apart the doors of the lift a little and extract four persons.

They added that Tanu,who had come from HDFC Bank-Mayur Vihar to its branch in the plaza,passed out due to suffocation and stress. Plaza workers then placed a fan near the opening in the doors to regulate the air and she was given water.

Satendra Kumar,a security guard said,I thought it would be stuck for 10 minutes or so and then restart on its own. But after (some time) I started panicking a little. Thankfully,the people in the lift called the fire brigade when the electricians outside couldnt figure out how to start the lift.

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The fire brigade officials,who reportedly arrived around 11.30 am,manually pulled up the elevator through its control room on top of the building,while the building mechanics worked on the second floor. It was around noon when the lift finally opened.

Ram Prasad,who is part of the maintenance team,said the cord of the lift got stuck due to a technical snag.

No one seemed to be able to open it and after four people were pulled out,everyone started panicking. Prasad said it happened because someone accidentally pressed the stop button. The power failure brought it to a complete halt, said Diwanker who works at the HDFC office on the fifth floor.

The six-floor commercial complex in Sector-18 has many offices and a few shops. The lift has been closed for repairs now.

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