It was around 8.15pm on Sunday and I had just returned home from work. No sooner did I sit on my bed, than it started shaking.
For a moment, I thought I was feeling dizzy. But I immediately realised that it was an earthquake. Living on the sixth floor of a seven-storied building in Ahmedabad, fear was quite natural.
The magnitude was 5.3 NNE of Bhachau in Kutch, I learnt later.
It brought alive unpleasant memories of the killer earthquake of 2001 that claimed over 12,000 lives in Gujarat, majority from Kutch, which was the epicentre. The earthquake of 7.7, too, had the epicentre in Bhachau. It took months and years before the worst-affected Kutch region and its people could stand back up on their feet again.
On Sunday, though, the scare was momentary. The only thing I ensured was that I had my 10-year-old daughter near me. In 2001, it was a different scene. I was working on the computer on the ground floor of our three-storied bungalow. I had experienced earthquake for the first time in my life. I, along with my parents and younger sister, rushed out and did not go in for more than half an hour.
Luckily, the magnitude of the earthquake on Sunday was low compared to the one on the Republic Day of 2001. However, scores of people rushed out of their apartments and buildings. Damages have been reported from “kaccha” homes from small towns and villages. There is no report of human lives being lost, so far.
I felt good that I could convince my panic-stricken neighbour to not to rush out with his family.
Even as I was trying to convince him not to rush down, there was something in my subconscious mind that kept reminding me that times have changed and so have the technologies. It has been 19 years.
If means of communication have changed, so have the safety norms for the buildings.
The phone lines had stopped working in 2001. It took hours before the actual damage—the the loss of lives—could be assessed. The next morning, I reached Ahmedabad, the head office of the newspaper in Gujarat with which I worked then. On the same night, I, along with my two colleagues, left for Ground Zero.
After dropping one of the colleagues in Saurashtra region, as we headed towards Kutch, we could see pyres burning on the roadsides. It was a scary scene. To add to our worries, our taxi driver kept insisting that he would leave immediately after dropping us. And he did so.
I clearly remember how I sat in an open ground, and wrote the article. I had little time, for I had to send the article to Ahmedabad. The pilot of the next flight from Bhuj to Ahmedabad had agreed to help us.
As we spent days in the earthquake-ravaged area, seeing the miseries of people and the rescue work, we ate what we got and went wherever we could go. We slept on the floor and chairs of the collectorate. The doors of the washrooms had broken due to earthquake. I had to request the watchman not to allow anyone inside as I went in.
I did have a mobile phone. But the connectivity was poor. There was no way to recharge the phones and even the incoming calls cost more than Rs 10 per minute. I used to feel terrible to refuse any villager who wanted to use my phone.
And now, here I am, working on my laptop with a high-speed internet connection.
But what has changed for good are the building safety norms post 2001. An engineer, working in a reputed builder's firm in Ahmedabad, tells me that concrete grades have changed and so has the steel quality.
According to him, while earlier M 15 concrete grade was used, now concrete grade is of M 25 to M 35, depending on the requirement. He also says that steel of FE 500 has replaced steel of FE 415 and the structural design has also become heavy. It is also mandatory to use ISI-mark steel.
In spite of all this, I did heave a sigh of relief that the magnitude of the earthquake was not high. There was a momentary fear but yes, things have changed for the good.