NOIDA: Lifts that malfunction typically plunge, what many shaken people who have been through it have described as “free fall”.
This Sunday, a snag made an
elevator
at a city condominium do the opposite. It took off with three people on board, rising 21 floors to hit the tower’s roof at the 25th floor and rebounding to stop just before the 24th.
Its passengers, two delivery personnel and a senior citizen, were lucky to escape without any serious injury.
This was the second time an elevator has gone erratic at the condominium, Paras Tierea in Sector 137, in recent months. In the previous incident last August, a 72-year-old woman died, possibly of heart attack, after an elevator “collapsed” from the eighth floor to the basement.
While the Aug 3 accident happened in tower 24, Sunday’s was reported from Tower 25, around 9.30pm. The elevator in question was descending to the ground floor from the eighth but stopped with a jerk on the 4th, possibly because of a sharp fluctuation in voltage. But from here, it rose back up, thudding into the building’s roof.
Technicians said it’s likely that at this point, someone from the upper floors had called the elevator, and it responded to that call instead of continuing to the ground floor because of the snag. An inspection also found the buffer spring, which helps bring the lift to a gradual halt at its destination, was loose. After being trapped for 15 minutes, Mohan Lal (65), a tenant living on the 8th floor, managed to prize open the lift’s door and climb out with the two delivery agents.
The malfunctioned lift is being maintained by
TK Elevator India Pvt Ltd
. The company’s staff repaired the lift on Monday, and according to them,
maintenance
work had been carried out just 15 days ago. However, AOA president Col Ramesh Gautam said they have filed a complaint with police, alleging negligence on the part of the maintenance company.
The AOA president said lifts were serviced every month and such incidents are “a matter of concern” that raise questions about the quality of maintenance. Paras Tierea is a large society with 69 lifts.
“Twenty-seven of 69 lifts in the society are manufactured and maintained by TK Elevator and other 42 by Otis. We signed an annual maintenance contract (AMC) with the two original equipment manufacturers for one year each from June 2023 soon after the builder handed over the society on June 1. For the AMC, we pay the two companies Rs 1 crore each annually,” Gautam said.
The lifts are 2014 models and more than eight years old, so their maintenance requires a huge sum and effort, he added.
The incident triggered protests by residents on Sunday, many of whom questioned the way elevators were maintained in the society and voiced concern about their safety. Vivek Singh Tomar, who lives in Tower 25, said the AOA was collecting Rs 2 crore as common area maintenance charge per month from residents. “When lifts are being maintained every month. Why then are such incidents happening? Last year, an elderly woman died in a lift accident.”
Vivek Pandit, another resident, said three weeks ago, he had alerted the society’s maintenance staff about a squeaking sound from the lift. Its sensors, he said, were not active either.
On Monday, the lift was inspected by technicians from TK Elevator, who said the elevator needed a minor buffer adjustment. A second lift of the tower had also stopped working for a brief period on Sunday, residents said.
SHO of Sector 142 police station Vineet Rana said they had received two complaints, one from Paras Tierea’s AOA against TK Elevator and the second from a group of residents against the AOA. “The persons trapped in the lift have not submitted any complaint. We are taking their statements and will make a decision whether to register an FIR accordingly,” Rana said.
Noida Authority ACEO Vandana Tripathi said it is also investigating the incident and will get in touch with the AOA president.