A first-person account

LATHA VENKATRAMAN and KRIPA RAMAN, Mumbai-based correspondents of Business Line newspaper, who were in Gujarat on holiday, found themselves not far from the epicentre of the earthquake as the ground beneath their feet shook. Here is their first-person account:

THE morning of January 26 found us at the village of Dhamdaka, 50 km east of Bhuj from where we had set off from our hotel room at day-break. Known for its vegetable dye work on fabric, Dhamdaka was a short detour during a day-trip to the Harappan site o f Dholavira, 250 km from Bhuj. We visited the workshop of Khatri Mohamedbhai Siddikbhai & Co., which our car driver Shakur Manjothi said was run by national award-winning artisans. It was with great difficulty that we tore ourselves away from the mounds of beautiful fabric at Khatri's in order to be able to get to Dholavira early, for we were to return to Bhuj by nightfall.

We had not been 10 minutes down the road from Dhamdaka when our car started to veer wildly and inexplicably. The vehicle was being thrown from side to side. Our windows having been rolled up to keep away the cold, Shakur thought the reason could be a str ong wind. Then he wondered if a tyre had a puncture.

Suddenly, clouds of dust rose up on either side. For a moment we thought it was a dust storm or a cyclone. Flocks of birds burst out of the shrubbery and there was a stampede of cattle, other livestock and dogs from the side-lanes. Shakur grappled with t he steering wheel, brought the car to a slow halt and ventured to step out. "Earth shake ho raha hai. Come out and feel it," he told us. The car was steadily rocking. We stepped out - there was no doubt that it was an earthquake. The ground below our feet was shaking.

Even as we were wondering what to do, we could hear human cries in the distance. Shortly, people were running out from a village lane on to the road in a shocked state, apparently headed nowhere.

We entered the village, the name of which we later discovered was Kabrau, 18 km from Bhachau. (Bhachau, it turned out later, was flattened in the quake.) We first came across a few elderly men lying injured among debris. Soon women and younger men were r unning in from the fields around, crying out in panic. Just when we were wondering what we could possibly do, there was another powerful tremor; and people, including us, bolted in terror to the nearest open spaces.

SOON we decided to head back to Bhuj. Along the road to Bhuj, it was a horrifying sight. There was hardly any structure that was left standing. The situation was the same in the village of Dhamdaka, which we had visited barely 10 minutes before the quake . But we were yet to see Bhuj, a more densely populated, built-up area. Bhuj had been devastated, wrecked.

Everywhere there were groups of people standing around looking shocked, or weeping; everywhere, there were bloodstained people walking about, people being taken in cars, or on vegetable vendors' carts or being physically carried to the 'hospital' in Jubi lee Maidan, the actual hospital having being completely ruined.

We headed straight to Shakur's home in a semi-pucca chawl on a lane, now flanked by ruins. To his and our great relief, his family was safe. They gave us lunch. Shakur was then kind enough to allow us to use his car as our 'home' until we found a way out of Bhuj. He parked it in a maidan where a lot of people had settled down too, seeking safety.

Along the way, we saw huge buildings tilted precariously, others flattened out down to their pillage or the ground floor. There was not a single built-up structure standing totally intact. Some buildings had spilled out to the road. In one case, the stai rcase had given way and people were trying to help down an elderly man, stuck on the second floor. He was probably too weak to have run out in time with the rest of the occupants of the building.

We wondered what had happened of the Gangaram hotel where we had checked in. Nobody quite knew, and the approach road to it through the busy Shroff Bazaar was completely blocked by rubble, we were told.

An 18th century monument, the Royal Tombs (Chhatri), built in commemoration of a ruler and his 15 wives, had also been razed to the ground. Before going to the maidan we checked at the airport, only to find that all the key facilities there had been dest royed.

Despite the scale of the tragedy and destruction, the citizens of Bhuj seemed to be amazingly stoic. People were grieving quietly, but there seemed to be no commotion or overt hysteria, no violence or heated arguments in the scramble for transport, petro l, food, medical aid or other facilities.

The communication network had collapsed, and for the next 48 hours there was no way survivors could send messages anywhere. Nor could they know anything of the situation around them and elsewhere. Only the radio provided bits and pieces of information ab out Ahmedabad and other cities of Gujarat, but little on Bhuj itself.

By evening, there was the reassuring sight of several military aircraft circling overhead. By that night, long-distance buses were plying. People spent the night warming themselves around little fires. The temperature must have been 10 C. Only fruit s were available for food. Most people slept in the open ground, with nothing overhead, no food and no toilet facilities. Much later, a relief camp distributed warm and wholesome kichdi.

In Bhuj, there was virtually nothing left in terms of infrastructure, including the hospital. Even the military establishment had suffered major damage. All that the people could do was to wait stoically until help arrived from elsewhere.

As for ourselves, by a stroke of luck we found a taxi driver who himself wanted to return to Ahmedabad. As we drove out from Bhuj we saw the road had cracked and caved in at many places. If Bhuj was a shock, the town of Bhachau left us speechless. Forget cracked buildings - there was not a single wall left standing in that town, which was entirely a stretch of rubble.

The Surajbari bridge connecting Bhuj with Ahmedabad had not collapsed (as it was rumoured in Bhuj) but it had developed cracks at both ends and the authorities were letting only small vehicles through, the exception being military vehicles.

Back in Ahmedabad we discovered the larger contours of the earthquake and the fact that it had been felt as far away as in Chennai and in Nepal. Our unforgettable journey finally took us back to Mumbai by the morning of January 28.