India, April 20 -- Nafisa (who goes by her first name), in her late 30s, lives in the house opposite the one that collapsed in Dayalpur, Mustafabad in northeast Delhi, along with her husband and five children. The family runs a meat shop on the ground floor and lives on the first and second floor in a 30-square-yard house.

On Friday night, she had just had a chat with her neighbours before going to bed at 12.30am. She woke up around 2.30am on Saturday to find the room shaking and then saw something hit the balcony wall.

"I thought it was an earthquake. Without thinking twice I woke up my husband, pulled two of my children with both hands and ran out. When we came out, there was so much dust everywhere that we couldn't see anything. When...