BOMBAY: The Deccan Plateau of India suffered a devastating earthquake on Sept.30. Over 30,000 people are feared to have been killed by the quake which hit regions of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Two towns and 73 villages were affected by the disaster. The towns of Killari and Umerga with population nearly 40,000 located in the cane growing belt of Maharashtra were razed to the ground with 80% of houses destroyed and others badly damaged. Officials estimate nearly 130,000 people have been rendered homeless.
The early morning hours of Sept.30 brought gloom and devastation to tens of thousands still in their beds, when the quake struck 43:56 a.m. Houses collapsed and deep cracks appeared in the earth as the region was shaken by deathly tremors. Within the space of minutes thousands of homes collapsed around sleeping dwellers burying them dead, only a few escaped. This is the worst quake to have hit India in the last 50 years. The damage was most severe in the heavily populated Later and Osman Abad districts. In some villages as many as 75% of the people were unaccounted for even five days after the disaster.
For those who survived, life is an awesome challenge. Many will take day’s perhaps even months 10 recover from the shocks and start afresh.
Killari, where the quake hit with its greatest fury, looks like a ghost town. The few who survived want 10 run away. Walhe, an old man says “eight people from my family died.” He was collecting wood on an Oxcart to cremate the dead. Lone women sat listless on a heap of rubble that was once her home, too shocked even to cry, she had lost her husband and three chi children. Relief comes slowly.
Four days after the disaster, on Oct.4, Indian _— Premier P.V.Narasimha Rao announced central aid of Rs 50 crore and said his government has decided on a massive program of seismological Mapping of sensitive areas of the country to avert similar disasters.
Rao made an aerial survey of the ruins of the villages in the Osman Abad Later belt of Marathwada region of western Indian state of Maharashtra.
He told the people that money would not be a constraint and bow the Central and state governments would make all out efforts for them to begin their lives afresh.
He had not visited the disaster Sight earlier saying it would hamper the relief work.
On Oct3, the New York Times reported that “In many villages devastated by Thursday’s tremors it was the survivors themselves who dug for the dead, who stacked the funeral pyres, who began the slow task of rebuilding their lives. There was little evidence of the relief camps promised by civilian officials and army authorities. Survivors from more than 40 villages destroyed or damaged by the earthquake huddled in field under makeshift lean tos of bamboo, tree limbs and salvaged sheets of corrugated roofing.”
The relief operations seem to be bogged down in the corridors of Indian bureaucracy. Officials of the State government have been slow to react and unsure of how to handle the operations reported a correspondent.
Lootings and Pillage: Even as thousand lay buried beneath the rubble of houses and the survivors mourned their dead, people from neighboring villages who were lucky to survive the Sept.30 devastation, made their way to loot and pillage the dead. Looters and thief’s claiming to be volunteer relief workers searched the ruins to remove precious jewelry from dead bodies. The Army was required to Step in to prevent the looters. Relief work has been hampered by rain and break down in communications. Since thousands of soldiers began digging through the rubble on Thursday they found only five Survivors in Village of Holi and a three year old boy who was the Sole Survivor of village Sastur.
International Aid: A number of countries from all over the world have offered! Assistance to India. India while welcoming money, tents and specialized medical equipment has refused to allow foreign volunteer organization workers. The USA has sent$2 million worth of aid, while France, Italy, Japan, UK, Canada and Switzerland as well as Kuwait and numerous other countries have set millions of dollars in money and supplies.
Mismanagement: Despite concerted efforts, there are widespread reports of relief not reaching all Survivors. Journalists visiting the quake ravaged villages have come back with tales of a lack of coordination between Army and civilian agencies and mismanagement of funds a familiar story in corruption ridden India.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 8, 1993
