January 26th, a public holiday. India wakes up to celebrate the 51st anniversary of being a sovereign republic. Wintertime, the dawn breaks in unhurriedly and so does my day. Children in the study and wife in the kitchen, no rush to report to work at the chime of six. With infinite time at my disposal I recline on the sofa, stretch out my legs on the glass top of the center table and intently pore over the fine print of the day's newspaper while sipping a hot cup of tea. As a retiree I am addicted to read the news in print rather than watch it on the TV.
The voice of tiny tots singing the national anthem draws my attention. I look out of my 7th floor balcony to see a cluster of smartly dressed children gathered in the backyard of the neighborhood apartments to hoist the national flag, and were even more eagerly waiting for the distribution of sweets after the flag hoisting ceremony. The aromas of `methi parota' being prepared in the kitchen fill all over the home and beckon me to get ready for breakfast.
First I dash to the toilet. Everything is calm and quiet and the mind is at peace. But while watching the patches of leakage on the westside wall I feel a little uncomfortable in my seat. The lashings of the fierce westerly rains of the last monsoon season have weakened the westside wall despite recent replastering. Then, all of a sudden, I experience that strangest feeling of my lifetime. Almost losing my balance I wonder, "Am I feeling dizzy and swooning or is it the whole building vacillating like a swing east to west!" Before I could realize what it was, a commotion broke loose all around. My family members started banging on the door, "Earth quake, earth quake! Come out!" So distinct was that swinging feeling that I hurried out in seconds fearing imminent collapse of the westside wall. A series of tremor waves, each lasting a few seconds, repeated again and again over a period of a few minutes. The birds flew helter-skelter in panic. The dogs started howling incessantly. Everywhere people started pouring out of the buildings into the roads and into scarce open spaces. Fortunately no cracks or damages could be seen to our building from outside. It was a painful thought to be thrown out homeless at this stage in my life.
Still unaware of the magnitude of the quake I called some friends in the nearby areas of the city and soon realized that the experience of these strong tremors was universal within the city. The television media was quick to flash the tremor news in the Mumbai metropolis. Soon it appeared to be the same case in Ahmedabad, a major city a couple of hundred kilometers in the north. While the exact information on the epicenter of the quake, the casualties or property damages was still being ascertained it was utter disbelief when seismic experts placed the magnitude of the quake at a very high end of the Richter scale.
The tremors were felt at several places all over the sub-continent comprising India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh and even extending up to China, making it the largest earth quake hitting India in fifty years. With communication and transportation links broken down, the number of casualties was initially reported to be a few dozens. The number swelled to 500 by evening and the next morning it was more than 5000. The final shape and size of the calamity is yet to be pieced together.
Indeed the might of nature once again humbled human overconfidence on technological prowess in a matter of minutes!
Dolphi D'Silva
January 27, 2001
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Comments: 38
My High School was destroyed by an earthquake and my sister made homeless years later when her apartment building collapsed.
Good article. Thanks.
I received an email that one of my connections had just commented on your article. It's impossible for me to read them all, but yours interested me. Being fairly new here, I have allowed my email inbox to get flooded with comments until I know how to navigate around the place.
Thank you for sharing a similar (albeit terrifying) experience from a different part of the world. Some things, alas, are universal!
And thanks, Enoch. I note that you are a reviewer of serious books. So your comments are highly valued.
Cheerz!
I especially appreciate your last line, Dolphi. Nothing like Mother Nature to jolt us into awareness of our true dependency.
I wonder where you were at the time of that quake. My experience paled out completely as more and more shocking reports of the event kept piling up for days together after the event.
The first time I was in a cafe with friends.We heard a sound like a bomb and actually thought it was one!But right after everything shook, the ceiling plaster decorations fell on our heads, my chair fell down and I found myself under the table (luck), the glass windows broke and as soon as it ended and we could stand up, we all ran like mice in the streets to the main square!Hundreds of people were running like crazy to find refuge in the open space, screaming, it was chaos!But that was not the end..a second quake in the middle of the night awoke us again.This time I jumped out of the window (ground floor) with the dog and the blanket (February) and stayed the whole night in the park with dozens of others.
That one was bad enough, but the other one killed many people among which some friends, tragic stories...nobody wants to remember...however these are also moments when people tend to get together, forget their differences and share each other's pain and help one another and this IS something one wants to keep in their heart.:-)
I have the faith in my God. He will protect us.
God bless.
I see you often on Gather shooting out lively and interesting comments. Gather is an exciting experience, isn't it?
I lived about 5 miles from the 1989 quake that hit the Santa Cruz/San Francisco area. It has officially been named the Loma Prieta quake. It was 7.1. The baseball World Series was underway in San Francisco when it hit. I was at home. The quake hit at 5:04pm. Within minutes I heard a whoosh and a neighbor's house propane tank exploded and the house was gone in minutes.
I had been through a couple of smaller quakes when I lived in Los Angeles but nothing in my life has compared to that quake. We were very lucky. Indeed there was property loss and loss of life, but it could have been much worse. 3 people died in the very coffee shop in downtown Santa Cruz that I had been in just hours before the quake.
I am glad to hear that you are alright. I know how terrifying earthquakes can be for the survivors. It is good to learn from it and be prepared next time, and hope against a next time!
I love reading interesting things and cant resist commenting.
God bless.
You asked me where do certain articles or images go for my groups...
Well I have decided to go through every one of your artciles and images and I will let you know if they belong in which group with a statement at the end of this comment...
As of right now this does not fit in any of the Starting with a Letter Groups I have yet...