EM – Just within last month, 6 elevator malfunctions have attracted public attention in Noida and Greater Noida (India). Residents are sinking in fear due to the news of increasingly frequent elevator accidents.
Many of these elevator accidents occurred in high-rise and crowded apartment buildings.
The first elevator incident took place at the Golf Gardenia Condominium in Alpha, Greater Noida when a family of eight was trapped in the elevator for hours. In fact, according to government reports, this area has often encountered similar incidents.
Following such an incident, a horrifying accident occurred at the Regenta Central Hotel in Sector 49, Noida. Nine people were wounded when the elevator fell from the third floor of the hotel. Five of them suffered serious injuries involving broken bones, while others bore minor injuries. According to officials, this incident occurred due to the overloading of the elevator, 9 people entered the elevator , however, the maximum capacity is only for 4-5 people.
Such accidents raise the issue of violations of elevator design standards. Such a standard also concerns which load capacity corresponds with which specified range of cabin area (maximum and minimum) to avoid exceeding the threshold of the number of people that the elevator’s braking system can operate normally under.
Soon after, another incident was reported by the Shivalik Homes Housing Association in Greater Noida. Here, a 10-year-old boy was stuck in an elevator for 30 minutes before being rescued by the elevator maintenance team.
Image of a 10-year-old boy, trapped in an elevator while being rescued in a state of panic
People said that these incidents happened frequently. They have also filed complaints to the UPSIDA (Uttar Pradesh Industrial Development Authority), after which the organization has instructed the construction workers to resolve this issue, however, nothing has been done yet.
Then, in the first week of May, two consecutive elevator failures occurred in Noida. The first incident happened at Assotech Windsor Court Apartment, Sector-78 (Noida), and the second incident was reported at Sector-79, Hillston Urbtech Apartment. In the first incident, a woman was stuck in an elevator for 15 minutes. She kept pressing the emergency button, but it didn’t work. After 15 minutes, residents and security staff managed to rescue the woman from the elevator. In the second incident, a father and his two children got stuck in a lift for about 25 minutes. He got out of the lift by contacting people via his cell phone for assistance.
A common cause of all of the above incidents is negligence in safety standards and lack of elevator maintenance. Representatives of residential groups in the aforementioned apartments have reported this issue to the authorities.
“These hotels and the companies that built these high-rise buildings did not respect safety standards. As a result, accidents like this happen frequently. To prevent such incidents, they need to adhere to a regular elevator maintenance process. It is important to have an elevator safety policy and that must be implemented in Gautam Budh Nagar as soon as possible.” – said a local official.
The chief executive officer of the Noida Regulatory Authority, Ritu Maheshwari, said that she would give her complaint letter to the government and request the approval of the Elevator Act as soon as possible. She also added that elevator-related accidents happen regularly and someone needs to be in charge of resolving this issue. In this regard, the government promises that the Elevator Act will soon be approved and enacted into practice.
