Scars fade, memories endure: Survivors recall chaotic ordeal

FOur-year-old Mitul Mehta picked up a little amerind signal flag and ran come out of his put up towards the Republic Day rally. His elder brother Rohit, then nine, was marching with his school, and Mitul wanted to be close enough to walk along, waving his flag. It was January 26, 2001. The family had celebrated Mitul’s fourth birthday a day earlier.At 8.46 am, as the rally passed through a narrow lane lined with old shops and houses, a powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.7 struck Kutch. Buildings collapsed within seconds. Lives ended where they stood.“My husband had gone to the Jain temple in Ganga Bazaar. That temple collapsed, but they managed to escape. Around 8.50 am, people started shouting that there had been a massive earthquake and the entire town was gone. At first, we thought it was a bomb blast,” said Ashaben Mehta, Mitul’s mother, her voice breaking at the memory. Seventeen members of the joint family lived together in a house that survived with minor cracks. “My husband and his brother ran out to look for our children.”They moved through rubble and bodies. They noticed a child’s legs sticking out from beneath a large stone. People nearby hesitated. Everyone was searching for their own. They did not know who the buried child was, only that he was alive. A few men came together, shifted the stone and pulled him out. His face was caked with mud and dust.As they turned away to continue searching, the child cried out.“I saw my father and uncle starting to walk away. That’s when I shouted, ‘Don’t leave me. I’m here,’” said Rohit Mehta, now 34, who runs a saree shop with his father in Anjar. “Only then did they realise it was me.”Rohit survived, rescued by his own family who did not recognise him at first. Mitul did not. The army later recovered his body from the debris.At least 185 children and 20 teachers were killed in the rally when buildings on both sides of the narrow lane collapsed. Across Gujarat, more than 20,000 people died, with Anjar, Bhuj, Bhachau and Rapar among the worst-hit .For months after the earthquake, the Mehtas lived in tents, fearful of aftershocks that continued for nearly a year. Their community later rebuilt their home. A memorial, Veer Balak Smarak, stands in Anjar town today, remembering the children and teachers who died in the rally.Ashokbhai Soni, who lost his house, shop and his 13-year-old son Rajesh, remembers the quake with pain. “In 1956, there was also a major earthquake. More than 100 people died around Datar Chowk and Khatri Chowk, the same route the rally took,” he said. “The rally usually began around 7.15 am, followed by the flag hoisting at the open ground. That day it started around 8.30 am, barely 15 minutes before the earthquake.”Soni said there were rumours at the time, including in some media reports, that Pakistan might attack Kutch on January 26.“When the tremors started, teachers thought it was a bomb blast and told everyone to lie down. Those who ran survived. They were just a few metres from the open ground. The buildings were very old and weak. They collapsed on the children,” he said.Twenty-five years and twenty thousand lives later, the visible scars of that morning have faded. Roads are wider, buildings stronger and infrastructure far better. What remains is memory.About 40 kilometres from Anjar lies Bhuj, the district headquarters, where the damage was among the worst. Murtaza Ali Vejlani, known as Lucky Ali, 25, works in a small hardware shop. He lost seven members of his family in the earthquake: his parents, grandfather, uncle, aunt and their two daughters. His mother’s body was found on the 28th day.“I was about eight months old. I was pulled out from the rubble after 102 hours by the Indian Army. Our entire house collapsed”. Ali was later told that his father had protected him (Ali) with his own body. “They say it was a miracle that I survived,” Ali added.His maternal uncle, who raised him , said the Bhuj Civil Hospital had collapsed. “Ali was flown to Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai. He had a serious injury at the back of his head. It took him 21 days to recover. The doctors and hospital staff started calling him Lucky Ali because they felt it was nothing less than a miracle. Since then, everyone calls him by that name,” he said.The uncle was living in Anjar at the time. He escaped unhurt, but at Mochi Bazaar in Khatri Chowk, where a Vohra community gathering was underway, 123 of nearly 300 people died. With Anjar devastated, he shifted to Bhuj and brought up Ali as his own son.Ali recalled a classmate who lost a leg in the earthquake and is now a professor at a college. “People survived in different ways,” he said.In Bhuj, journalist Mayur Thakkar has spent time interviewing survivors and families of victims. “The pain has eased, but it has never gone,” he said. Thakkar was 14 at the time and living in Bhachau. When asked about his own experience, he paused for a long time. “I just realised that I can speak to others and ask them about their stories, but I find it difficult to talk about my own,” he said.His father was a school teacher, and the family lived in a government quarter near the railway line.“When the quake started, we thought there had been a train accident. My sister usually woke up early every morning, but that day she was unwell and asleep. I was at home with my mother and sister. When the quake struck, my mother and I ran out instinctively. Only later did we realise my sister was still inside. The shaking lasted for about two minutes. Before she could get up and come out, the house collapsed. She was five years older than me. We could not save her.”He said relief poured in from across India and from abroad. “Soon, Kutch was filled with volunteers and rescue teams trying to help people in every possible way,” he said.In Bhachau, one of the worst-hit towns, lives Bhukamp (meaning earthquake) Rabari, a name that still draws attention. He was born minutes after the earthquake.His mother Shaniben Rabari said she had been advised to get admitted to hospital on January 25. “I told the doctor I would come the next day. We are daily wage workers. I could not afford to miss even one day of work,” she said. “On January 26, when the earth shook, our kutcha house collapsed immediately. We ran out and somehow managed to take shelter under a neem tree. Everything was reduced to rubble.”And Shaniben went into labour. A local dai was called. Shaniben lost consciousness. “There was a time when people felt none of us would survive. My one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, who was in a cradle, was buried. People rescued her. I delivered a baby boy in the middle of all this.”A doctor examined the child on the third day and found him healthy. “He said the child should be named Bhukamp. We are proud that he was born at a time when everything around us had collapsed,” she said.The name stayed. Today, Bhukamp, who works as a driver, says he no longer likes speaking about it.“Later, as per our rituals, I was named Suresh. But Bhukamp is everywhere, on my school certificate, Aadhaar card, everywhere. People know me by different names. Friends call me Bhura Rabari. But yes, I am also known as Bhukamp,” he said.