Death, destruction, yet compassion as well

[Guest guest]

Death, destruction, yet warmth

 

 

 

 

By Kalpana Sharma

 

BHUJ, JAN. 30. Four days after Friday's earthquake, this city remains

a logistical nightmare for those planning relief. For one, the

airport, part of an Indian Air Force base, is stretched to the limit

in trying to cope with incoming relief and commercial aircraft.

Yesterday, for instance, all traffic was affected because the Prime

Minister arrived for an aerial survey.

 

The commercial airlines have no communication with their offices in

Mumbai, Delhi or Ahmedabad except through the Air Traffic Control at

the airport. As a result, they cannot inform passengers about the

flight schedules.

 

At the airport itself, the tight security keeps passengers and

visitors waiting for hours outside the gates of the air base.

Meanwhile, planes carrying relief supplies and army personnel and

taking out people land and take off with regularity.

 

Once the supplies have landed, there is little planning about how

they will reach the city or the affected villages. Yesterday, cooked

food and water sachets sent for the quake victims were distributed to

the hordes of passengers waiting to fly out of Bhuj. Otherwise, the

food would have rotted.

 

Until yesterday, there were no transport arrangements from the

airport. You would have to walk the five km to the city or hitch a

ride. Once in, there is practically no private transport though a few

buses have begun plying. Most of them are packed with people leaving

for places they feel are safer.

 

Airlines besieged

 

The commercial airlines, which have restored services to the city,

are virtually under siege. They have few staff; many of their people

are affected by the quake. There is hardly anyone available to load

and unload baggage. The airport terminal building has been destroyed.

Passengers are taken in a bus directly to the aircraft, frisked by

one or two policemen who manage to report for duty, and then allowed

to board. The entire operation can take over an hour against the

normal 20 minutes.

 

Every flight into the city carries people who have come to look for

their relatives.

 

One such person is Mr. Ashfaque Wahedna from Mauritius. His family

went there from Kutch three generations ago. He has married a woman

from Bhuj who was visiting her family with her two young children

while he attended a meeting in Pune. Then the quake struck. Mr.

Wahedna could not contact his family; he did not know whether they

had survived. He flew in here on Sunday. At the airport, there was no

transport to take him into the city. He hitched a lift into town.

After that he did not know where to go.

 

With difficulty he found the house where his wife was supposed to

have stayed. It was intact but empty. For hours he walked through the

city asking people where the family could be. He was lucky. He found

his wife, two-year-old son and 10-month- old daughter safe in one of

the open camps in the city. His little daughter, safe in his arms,

smiled for the first time during the flight to Mumbai on Monday.

 

Amazing generosity

 

Everyone you meet has a story like this. At the same time, the

tremendous generosity of people in such crisis is also amazing. The

city has no hotels today where a visitor can stay. There are no shops

where you can buy emergency supplies or medicines. There are no

restaurants or eating places. The government circuit house is also

destroyed.

 

If you go there as a relief worker, or as a journalist, you have to

sleep in the open like all others in the city. Even the Collector and

senior bureaucrats have been sleeping in the compound of the

collectorate. Yet, people go out of their way to help you. This

correspondent, along with other journalists, was not only

accommodated for a night in a bus parked outside a private house, but

given extra quilts and blankets to survive the bitterly cold night,

and given a hot cup of tea in the morning.