Mud huts stand firm

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Mud huts stand firm amid killer Gujarat quake ruins

Nanatunda Navavaas (Gujarat), Februaey 15

Mohammed Yusuf proudly points to a cluster of tiny mud huts standing

erect in a village in quake-ravaged Gujarat.

 

Then he gestures to a pile of rubble, the only remains of a cement-

and-concrete dwelling which was once a symbol of upward mobility in

his tiny tribal village of Nanatunda Navavaas in Gujarat's arid

marshland.

 

No longer.

 

"All the 84 bhungas (mud homes) in our village are still standing

strong, while these new pucca (permanent) houses that a few amongst

us had built just crumbled in the quake," Yusuf, the village headman,

says.

 

The monster earthquake that ripped through the region in January

killed upwards of 30,000 people in the coastal state.

 

Only a handful of families in the poor village of predominantly

Muslim Samma tribals had permanent concrete homes in a landscape

dotted with basic conical huts made of mud, twigs and dried grass.

 

The 1,200-odd Samma tribals near Pakistan in the Kutch region, which

bore the brunt of the January 26 earthquake, now say they are glad

they did not switch to modern homes.

 

They say their traditional homes based on centuries of indigenous

knowledge gleaned from surviving in the quake-prone region have

proved to be much sturdier than the new brick-and-cement

constructions.

 

Villagers in Nanatunda Navavaas, 75 km (47 miles) north of the town

of Bhuj which suffered huge damage in the quake, say they got off

lightly only because of their traditional mud homes.

 

"Most of us in our tribe were lucky and except for the three who were

taken by the Maker," says Mitta Lakhmir, the eldest son in a family

of seven and a father of five children.

 

Three people from the village, including an old man and two children,

were killed in the quake which struck with terrifying intensity on

the morning of January 26.

 

Lakhmir pointed out a few minor cracks that surfaced in the baked mud

walls of his traditional home after the quake which clocked 7.7 on

the Richter scale.

 

"Nothing happened in here, we just felt the world around us wobble

and spin, but the roof made of twigs just stayed intact," he said,

pointing to the interior of the dark, cool hut.

 

The tribals, whose language and cheerful loose cotton clothes and

headgear suggest a racial and cultural affinity to the Sindhis across

the border in Pakistan, farm coarse millets during the June-September

monsoon and work as labourers the rest of the year.

 

Lakhmir said people in the neighbouring, mainly Hindu, settlement of

Khavda had not been as fortunate because most of them were living in

concrete dwellings.

 

"The toll (of dead and injured) there was higher but we were

thankfully able to quickly help them by giving them blankets and

other warm clothing," Lakhmir says.

 

Flawed design, poor construction material, flouting of building codes

and lack of simple quake-proofing measures resulted in a death toll

far higher than it should have been in Gujarat, quake experts say.

 

While many quake victims in Gujarat are still grappling with the

process of rebuilding their lives, post-quake life has been much

easier for the Samma tribals.

 

Children played without a care as a group of colourfully dressed

women were busy cooking lunch near Yusuf's hut.

 

About 75 students belonging to the village's only Madarsa or Muslim

religious school are back to studying in makeshift tents after their

school building collapsed in the quake.