Fragile or Indomitable??? An Earthquake Story. (Based on TRUE EVENTS)

A couple of days ago, I got a few forwarded photographs on Whatsapp. They were photographs from the recent earthquake in Nepal and I found them to be very powerful, very beautiful in a unique way! I have shared the same below.

These two images took me down a memory lane and brought back to me a lot of horrific as well as some beautiful memories from my past, memories of the 2001 earthquake of Gujarat. Of course, the occurence itself of the earthquake at Nepal reminded me of the earthquake of Gujarat but these two images brought back to my mind, the entire experience in detail.

I have experienced and survived the 2001 earthquake of Gujarat!

I was approximately 16 years old. My family and myself were in the city of Ahmedabad during the earthquake. We experienced tremendous horrors as well as many glimpses of the beauty of the human spirit and the entire experience is engraved in our minds forever.

The earthquake had chosen a public holiday to strike Gujarat, it was the morning of 26th January, 2001. So most of the people were enjoying some extended sleep or were just lazying around in their homes having breakfast or reading newspapers or watching television. And suddenly the earth started shaking and cracking! It took a few seconds for people to realise that it was an earthquake. And before something could be done to protect themselves and their family, the calamity had taken its toll!

I saw buildings sway like a reverse pendulum. I saw so many buildings and “homes” turned into heaps of debris. I saw innumerable dead bodies. I saw crushed people. I saw people with missing limbs or other body parts. I heard cries of help from under the debris. Many people were stuck alive somewhere inside the debris and nobody could see them and I experienced a heart wrenching helplessness when I could not do anything to help and save some of those screaming people. Those screams faded away after a few hours as those people must have died. Its a level of helplessness, I pray and hope that nobody gets to experience! Entire families were wiped out in a matter of seconds! There was mayhem all around. There was utter chaos!

Some people would have died instantly. But some people had to go through a slow and torturous death. Trapped for hours under the debris with dust all around, no space to move even an inch, broken and crushed body parts, suffering an unimaginable pain, no or very little light, no water to drink, very little breathable air and many of their relatives laying dead next to them or around them. Many had to keep looking at their dead wife or children or siblings or someone else while they themselves were waiting to die! Hundreds of people faced such a horrific death! 😦

Some people, who were trapped at the top or other reachable parts of the debris, were able to be rescued by other people. Myself and many other men, who were young and fit, started doing what we could. We started moving around on the top of the debris of the fallen buildings in the locality that we were in. And we were able to pull out some people that we could reach to and some lives were saved. And we also did pull out some dead bodies because we were not sure whether they were alive or dead. There was a big risk of an aftershock earthquake striking again and hence many people decided to stay away from the debris. But some people decided to take the risk.

My family was sitting, in a semi state of shock, with a few relatives and other unknown people in an open area at my uncle’s house which was a bungalow. At that point they did not know that I was with this group of people moving on the debris trying to help people who were stuck in the upper and reachable parts of the debris. The risk of an aftershock earthquake was too high and they wouldn’t have allowed me to be around the debris (or maybe they would have, I can never know for sure!) and so I decided to keep this decision of mine hidden from my family. They thought that I was sitting a little further away on the road. There were heaps and heaps of people sitting there or walking around in that area. To make sure my family does not panic about where I was, every 20 to 30 minutes I would just walk back to them, sit with them for 5 minutes or so and then go back to join that group of people who were trying to rescue and save as many lives as possible.

We had to move very carefully on the debris as we could slip and fall and hurt ourselves or get stuck somewhere. Anyhow, we were able to pull out a few people who were still alive and some lives were saved. I hope that those people lived a long-happy life. 🙂

While moving around on the debries to pull out people, we came across this one particular man. He must have been in his fifties. He would have been laying on the bed with his wife when the earthquake happened. I can say that because, when we spotted him, he was laying sideways on his crushed bed, facing his wife and the wife was laying next to him, on his right side, on her back facing upwards.The wife was dead! And they were stuck under an extremely heavy concrete beam that had fallen just below their waist. Their legs were crushed at their mid thigh level upto just below their knees! This man was still alive when we reached him. It was unbelievable that he was still alive and conscious. He couldn’t move and had to keep seeing his dead wife for the entire time that he was stuck there!

What a spine chilling agony! 😦

When we reached him, we tried everything we could to move the debries and the heavy concrete beam, so that he could be pulled out. But we could not move the concrete beam! We tried and tried but could not pull him out. The beam was too heavy for us to lift it with our bare hands. After half an hour of us trying to pull him out while standing next to his wife’s dead body and hearing his bloodcurdling screams when we were trying to move the beam, he said something to us which could have been his last spoken words. We did not know at that point whether he would live or die and so those could have very well been the last words he ever spoke.

He said in the Gujarati language, “Beta (Son), give me some water to drink and then you go and try to save other people who can be saved. Stop wasting your time here. You have tried enough. If I am alive when the rescue services reach here then well and good but you boys dont waste your time with me anymore. Please save others.”

I just could not believe my ears! The strength, selflessness and the retained sanity of that man in the condition that he was in, is something I would never forget till my last living breath! After hearing that, I started crying! I had already seen lots of horrible things by then which would, generally, break a person and give him nightmares for a long time to come but until that moment I had not shed a single tear and was still mentally strong and sane. Somehow my mental chemistry is such that during times of crisis my mind works efficiently and diligently and I dont panic or breakdown easily. Many experiences from my past has made me realise this fact about myself. But that moment broke me and also, somehow, gave me more strength! Even right now, while recalling and typing this, I have tears in my eyes!

After that man said those words, we decided that 2 of us should keep trying to move the beam and rest of us should try and find other people who need help & can be saved. Myself and another person decided to stay back. First we helped the man drink some water and then kept on trying to move the beam. We just went on and on. After some time we realised that our efforts might not give us the intended result. We realised that if 8 to 10 people could not move the beam then the two of us being able to move it was as good as a miracle. But we still kept trying and waiting for that miracle!

We were helpless, teary eyed and we were seeing the man die right in front of our eyes, slowly! And we were unable to do anything. I kept on chanting a prayer in my mind, for some miracle to happen to save this man. But nothing happened! His hands were free and he kept his left hand on his dead wife’s forehead and closed his eyes. I dont know the exact moment when he might have taken his last breath. But after a few minutes of his closing his eyes, we checked if he was still breathing and found that he was not! He was dead! Those words were really the last words that man spoke before he died!

Even after 4 to 5 hours after the earthquake, the rescue services were still not active, or maybe they were but had not reached many areas including the area we were in. Well, I can never know for sure what the real scenario was with respect to the rescue services, But I know one thing for sure that many people died who could have been saved if the rescue services were made available efficiently and on time.

When the earthquake struck, my family and myself were in an apartment on the 7th story of a high rise building. It was my aunts home. I was still sleeping and my family with my extended relatives were at the breakfast table having tea and breakfast when it happened. I was woken up by the heavy swaying & the super loud and continous thunderous sound. I dont know how, but within a couple of seconds I knew that it was an earthquake. I somehow managed to get up in the middle of the heavy swinging and ran out of the room screaming “earthquake-earthquake” towards my family. I reached them and started screaming out to my family to move away from the table fearing that the chandelier on the ceiling which was swinging crazily, if it would have crashed, could have fallen on them. I was also screaming and telling them to get under a wooden table for some sort of protection. My mind was still working during that time and today when I think back, I am myself astonished!

My father had gone downstairs for a walk and make a few phone calls from an STD booth. And so, in the middle of the earthquake, while thinking about what to do next I was also extremely worried about where my dad was and was he alright or not! During that time, mobile phones were not used the way we use them today and so I knew that I would have to wait to know about my dad being alright or not. I can’t explain in words that ordeal of not knowing and having to wait!

A few seconds after the earthquake stopped and the swaying ended, we all just got up, ran out of the house and started running down the stairs. We all reached the ground floor and ran out on the road. We had reached safety but we could not breathe a sigh of relief as we were madly panicking about where my father was and innumerable devastating thoughts started haunting us.

And then a couple of minutes later, I saw my father running towards us. I, again, cannot explain in words the relief we experienced on seeing my father. We ran towards him and we hugged each other like we had never before. After that we were all standing on the road and nobody knew what to do next.

The building that we were in had become very weak. There were cracks all over the building and the pillars(columns) that were visible on the ground floor had all become cracked and weak. We were lucky that the building withstood this first wave of the earthquake and did not just crash like many others. But it was highly doubtful whether it would be able to bear another wave. Hundreds of people were out on the street. After some time of standing on the road and thinking about what to do next, we decided to reach my uncles bungalow which was a little far away from where we were. We had to make sure he was OK. 

During that time when we were still waiting, digesting what had happened and thinking about what to do next, before we decided to go to my uncle’s place, my aunt, at whose house we were on the 7th floor, decided in her mind to do something which none of us would have allowed. And so she never shared that with us before going ahead with that decision of hers. She just said that she was going to check on some of her building neighbors and would be back soon and we were supposed to wait there for her.

My aunt has been a widow since many years and she has two daughters. She is well to do but did not have many sources of income at that point of time and her daughters were still studying and unmarried. Lots of expensive jewellery and many other important documents and other high-value belongings were still laying at her home upstairs. Just like everyone, we had also just rushed downstairs once the earthquake had stopped and so there was no time or ‘thought’ to pick important belongings.

And so, when we reached downstairs and realized that the building would not be able to withstand another wave, she panicked and decided in her mind that she needs to run back upstairs, gather all the high-value belongings that she can quickly and run back downstairs. I don’t judge her on that decision of hers. Right or wrong, I do empathize with her thought process and the decision that she took at that moment. 

The rest of us were unaware that my aunt was planning to do this. With the excuse of meeting her neighbours she walked away and mixed into the crowd of people. Somehow my eyes followed her. I saw that she was going towards the building. I got up quickly, told my parents I would be back in a minute and ran towards my aunt. I was running to tell her that all her neighbors would definitely be on the street and so to not to go near or inside the building. But before I could reach her I saw her moving towards the staircase. I was shocked! Everyone knew that if another earthquake would have struck, even a mild one, the building had a very high probability of collapsing. As a matter of fact, the building could just collapse on its own without another earthquake, it had become so weak!

So I ran faster towards her to stop her. When I reached nearer I screamed out to her. She was about to start climbing the stairs when she heard me, turned around, saw me and stopped. I reached her and asked what the hell was she doing and she shared her plan with me and told me to go back out on the road and she would be back in a few minutes. I said that I just cant allow that and that we were already in a big risk by just standing there as we were standing inside the entrance lobby of a building which could collapse anytime and so we should just run back out to the road. But she was not ready to budge and I could not just leave her there.

So I offered her that she should tell me where her belongings are and I would get it for her as I could run upstairs faster then her and get the things and run back down faster too. She said that I would not be able to find the things and so she herself would have to go upstairs. She forced me to go back out but I couldn’t leave her there. Finally, We decided to go back up together.

Today when I look back, I realize that it was an extremely dangerous decision that we took. The risk was extremely high and we should have not done that. But destiny had other plans and I think that we were meant to go back up because during that time I saw and experienced something on the way down which was just simply cruel and heart wrenching!

So, as we decided that we will go up together, we ran upstairs as fast as we could. On the way up, we saw that each and every door of every apartment was wide open and so we thought that everyone was downstairs on the road and we also did not see anyone on the way up. We reached my aunt’s apartment and she gathered her important belongings in a jiffy and we were on our way back down in just a few minutes since we started going upstairs. The tension was constant on our minds about the building collapsing.

While on the way back down, my aunt and I saw something that just shocked us to the core. We saw an old lady, standing at her house entrance door. I wondered where she was when we were running upstairs. When we came across her, that old lady was all alone in the entire building! And she was crying. My aunt asked her why is she not downstairs and we came to know that her entire family had just run away quickly down the stairs without taking her with them. We realized that she was so old that she wouldn’t have been able to walk down the stairs quickly and would also need someone to hold her hand and take her down slowly. And so her entire family just ran down and left her there all alone! I just could not believe what I was seeing. How can someone do this? That too to their own family!! 

And so, as you would have realized, I was put in a dilemma. On one hand I was in a hurry to just get out of the damn building and reach the road and then destiny makes me come across this! What was I supposed to do now!!! Whether I should just ignore and forget that I saw that lady and keep running down or help her and take her downstairs with me? 

It took me a few seconds to decide what to do! I realized that I would not be able to live with myself if the building collapsed and that old lady died. I would not be able to bear that guilt of not helping her and of leaving her survival to chance. And luckily my aunt also was of the same opinion that we cant just leave her there. And so we decided to help. Each second in that building at that time seemed like an hour. But we had to help her and so we started to help her get downstairs. I don’t remember precisely, but I do remember that luckily she was on the 1st or the 2nd floor itself. And so we just had to climb down a few flights of stairs before we were back to safety. I could not carry her as she was quite huge and heavy. Hence, slowly we brought her downstairs and she got reunited with her family and we also were back to safety. All this happened in a span of a few minutes.

I can’t imagine how that old lady must have lived the rest of her life knowing that her own blood relatives, with whom she has to live as long as she lives, had left her there to die! What an unimaginable pain! I never met her after that incident.

I wish I had.

So then as soon as we all were back together on the road we left for my uncle’s house. Luckily, it was unaffected by the earthquake and my uncle-aunt were also perfectly alright. A little while later after reaching my uncle’s house, me and some other people started moving on the debris of the fallen buildings around us to find and help the people still alive and stuck in the reachable parts of the debris. About that I told you already.

And then after 2 very long and saddening days and nights we could get a mode of transport to get back to Mumbai. 

Dear Reader, I saw many horrible things but I also got many glimpses of beautiful things that still keeps my faith in humans and humanity alive.

I saw people loose everything! Everything meaning every damn thing! Everything that they ever owned was gone. So many loved ones had been lost to death! Hundreds of children were orphaned. Life for many had become like a clean slate with only memories to survive on and and I am sure you can understand that its not an easy state to be in!

I saw extreme levels of selfishness, misery and devastation.
But, I also came across selflessness, kindness and courage. I saw people helping other people, in whichever way they could, without thinking about themselves. I saw people trying to cope with the tragedy in the best way they could.

As time passed by, many horrible stories started making rounds of how some people exploited the whole situation by Robbing things, Profiteering, Price Gouging, Black marketing and tragic stories of the various losses of people.

But many good stories also came out, inspiring stories of survival, courage, compassion and kindness of people. And, I believe, the same would start happening in the case of Nepal too. After a few weeks, when things would start falling into place slowly, we will get to hear or read many inspiring and heart touching incidents.

Today, after so many years, when I visit Ahmedabad, I find new buildings standing on the places where there was only debris. It feels as if its a completely brand new city. New homes in the place of the old broken ones. The survivors having coped with the loss of their loved ones and I see that most of them have coped with the horrible things that they had to go through.
But one definite thing I notice is that life has moved on for the good. Today, Gujarat has turned into one of the finest state in our country to live in and Ahmedabad is better then ever. Looking at the magnificence of the Kutch region today, it would be hard to believe that almost the entire Kutch region had been wiped off!

I believe, hope and pray that the same would happen to Nepal too! Just as the phoenix rises back from its own ashes, within some time, Nepal would start rising again from the debris and devastation. 

This recent earthquake has taken its deadly toll. Every person who has experienced and survived an earthquake or any other enormously devastating natural calamity first hand, knows exactly the level of tragedy those people have faced in Nepal. My heart and prayers goes out to everyone out there. I have a few Nepalese friends in Nepal from my “Mount Everest Base Camp” trek and “Kaala Pathar” summit expedition and I have been trying to get in touch with them since the news of the earthquake broke out. Sadly, I still haven’t been able to get in touch with any of them. I hope and pray that they are alright.

My dear reader, please do your bit by understanding and empathizing with the plight of those people and helping out whichever way you can. If you cant do anything financially or physically then just pray for their well-being, even that is more then enough. But the least you can do is, please avoid sending funny sms jokes about this earthquake and try to sternly stop the people who are doing that. There is not a single strand of humor of any type whatsoever, which could be justified here. I have been getting a few forwarded jokes about this earthquake including one based on Rajnikant and it makes me sad. It makes me sad thinking about the level of insensitivity some people can exhibit. At least, I hope you are not one of them!

In the end, I have come to realize that The Human Life is so damn Fragile. But one more thing that I have experienced and wholeheartedly believe in is that, The Human Spirit is Indomitable! 

And although, the lives of millions of people has been altered forever after this deadly devastation, after a few years, when we shall look back, we would see that the human spirit would have again triumphed! We shall see that Life, Hope and Creation would have overpowered Death, Sadness and Devastation.

And that’s precisely what the image of that survivor baby signifies to me and brings a peaceful smile on my face. 🙂

Yes….Our Lives might be Fragile but our Spirit is definitely Indomitable! 🙂

May that child get a good life! 🙂

And May Peace and happiness be unto all of us.
-Vishrut

P.S. – Dear Reader, Please do share your views with me by either posting your comments here in the comments section or emailing me at vishrut.parekh@gmail.com. I would look forward to that! 🙂 Thanks. May God Bless You and Take Care.