April 12, 1999
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UTTAR PRADESH Killer Quakes Chamoli's midnight tremblor could be a precursor to a larger earthquake predicted to savage the Himalayas. But don't expect anyone to be ready. By Sayantan Chakravarty
Like Mayeshwari, thousands of traumatised, homeless people cower fearfully in the hills and valleys, their fear springing from an unseen subterranean energy that would dwarf the world's nuclear arsenal. Such was the power released on March 29 and 30 when an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale rumbled through the Himalayas, killing 100 people and rendering thousands homeless in 500 villages, mainly in Chamoli and Rudraprayag districts, in a half-minute violent shaking of the earth. Below the Himalayas, giant slabs of earth carrying the Indian subcontinent were grinding into Asia, shaking the mountains effortlessly, like a wrinkled bedsheet. The tremor was felt as far away as Delhi, where thousands poured on to the streets at night and many houses developed cracks. It is, geologists stress, a precursor to the big one, a tremblor measuring 8 that could one day soon devastate large swathes of north India. The Richter scale is not mathematical. Each time the magnitude increases by one unit, the ground moves 10 times faster and releases hugely more energy. A magnitude 6 quake has about 32 times more energy than one of magnitude 5. "Chamoli is just smoke, we should be looking for the fire," warns J.G. Negi, emeritus scientist at the National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad. It is a warning that he has frequently made. The last big one was in 1950 in Assam, a ripper of 8.5 that killed 532 people. In the past 100 years, four of the 14 largest quakes have occurred in the Himalayas, one of the world's most active seismic zones. Last year hundreds died when unstable mountainsides collapsed in Malpa and Rudraprayag. "This is all in the same tectonic belt, but we can only speculate on the connection," says V.C. Thakur, head of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun. Wadia geologists are now out studying the aftershocks of Chamoli. About 30 more tremors measuring between 2.4 and 5 on the Richter scale have kept the hills swathed in a seemingly endless terror. It is everywhere. Goldsmith Sikander Shah, 30, cringes when he recounts his torment. The slender youth from Sitamarhi, Bihar, settled in lower Chamoli about 12 years ago, earning a good living for himself. On the midnight of March 28, his happy world lay in ruins. Five of his closest relatives were crushed by heavy stone slabs that came tearing down in a flash. There was no time to act. "The noise was as though the earth below was opening up," says Usha Devi, his wife, who was in the same house. "Then came the cries of the dying." The Rs 50,000 that the Government has promised to the families of each of the dead will be small compensation for the Shahs. Around 30 persons in and around the Purana Bazaar area where the Shahs settled also died. In Upper Chamoli the casualties were not as high but the destruction was appalling. In a police lock-up, six people, including a woman, were killed instantly. "Like a leaf in a storm, our house shook and then everything crumbled," recalls constable K.K. Singh. With wife Hira Devi, Singh rushed to the lock-up but it was too late. Nine injured prisoners were removed in the darkness. The six lay crushed under entire sections of walls and roofs. Fear stalks the streets, the fields, creeps into the tents of the homeless. In the district headquarters of Gopeshwar, normal life has come to an end. The town folk do not want to stay indoors as an "earthquake alarm" rings across the skies every now and then. Often people rush out on false alarms. Says school- teacher Usha Bhat: "We can't sit in peace inside as our houses have cracked up." But out in the open there is another fear. "It is unsafe to sleep here," says Sukhdev Singh, 21, tremulously. Garhwal is leopard country, notorious in the past few years for flash attacks on humans by the big cats. As for disaster management, don't look beyond the tired, inadequate knee-jerk reactions. No one has ever bothered about cheaper alternatives for the brittle stone and tin houses perched precariously on the hillsides. No one's ever heard of the building codes that faceless bureaucrats draw up. For now even the tents being pitched in the villages, in habitations that dot the roadheads, are grossly inadequate. Medical aid is a dream for many. Mayeshwari's son Amit Raj, 10, has a laceration on his right ankle caused by a sharp slab that tore into him. Forget the counselling he so desperately needs after losing his sisters, he hasn't seen a doctor yet. For now all speech has simply deserted him. As politicians swarm the two villages, officials can't be seen. Not that the sight of politicians is welcome. In Upper Chamoli, Prime Minister A.B.Vajpayee's emissaries, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman K.C. Pant and Minister of State for Agriculture Som Pal, were heckled. "We saw after the 1991 quake that assurances are all you get," says Ganwar Singh dismissively moments after Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh made a flying visit to the devastated village. Som Pal spoke of a comprehensive disaster-management policy (CDMP) and a calamity-relief fund with a corpus in excess of Rs 6,300 crore. How he plans to make that money trickle down effectively is not clear. All he tells you is, "An on-the-spot assessment team will come, submit a report and it shall be considered by an inter-ministerial group." "We always find the machinery works as long as VIPs come and go, then everything becomes a forgotten tale," says R.P. Nautiyal, a government counsel. So forget for now the geological studies and the building solutions needed. In the disaster-ridden Himalayas, callousness has a history -- and it will have a future. -with Subhadra Menon |
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Wild-eyed and
stunned, Mayeshwari Devi crouches on the ground, a tired speck of humanity stunted into
insignificance by the great mountains of Garhwal. The rubble behind her, once her home, is
now a tomb for her two teenage daughters. Her two little boys are hurt, and Devi has
little to say. "I have lost everything," the 42-year-old widow mutters over and
over again. She will not go indoors, fearing she will be crushed, like her daughters were.
