India’s mightiest earthquake in a half-century tore at the subcontinent’s midriff Friday, felling buildings, entombing victims in the rubble of buildings and killing thousands of people. More deaths were expected.
Press Trust of India reported that 2,500 people had died in the huge temblor in the country’s western state of Gujarat. It did not give a source for its figures, and other media gave estimates of the number of dead ranging from 2,000 to 5,000. More than 3,000 were injured.
The earthquake, calculated at a magnitude 7.9 by the U.S. Geological Survey, was felt as far away as Bangladesh, 1,200 miles distant astride the Bay of Bengal. In New Delhi, 600 miles from the epicenter, high-rises swayed. Office workers in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, India’s other major metropolises, also said buildings shuddered.
Gujarat’s commercial capital, Ahmedabad, shook so violently that “it was like sitting in a boat that was caught in a storm,” one survivor said.
“We have decided to meet the emergency on a war footing,” Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said. “The earthquake is a calamity of national magnitude.”
The quake struck at 8:46 a.m. as many Indian cities were beginning celebrations for Republic Day, which commemorated the adoption of the country’s constitution 51 years ago.
In Ahmedabad, a sprawling city of more than 4 million, helmeted rescue workers used iron rods to pry slabs of concrete and metal, searching for survivors. Women wept and rocked back and forth, watching as the few available bulldozers and cranes pushed through the piles of stone that once had housed families and shops.
Beds, children’s toys and clothes lay abandoned in the debris, lamp posts and electric pylons were twisted and many buildings were left leaning precariously.
In one neighborhood, residents took matters into their own hands, and all day long the volunteers removed bricks and masonry from a crumbled building.
Every time a person was pulled out alive, a cheer went up.
A hush descended when volunteers pulled out a dead body.
“We have got no help from police or local authorities,” said Maheshbhai Patel, a shop owner helping with the rescue efforts.
After night fell, with temperatures at 55 degrees, survivors spread blankets and huddled around campfires.
“There is a great panic among the people and they have spilled out onto the streets,” said Haren Panya, home minister of Gujarat.
There were least 83 aftershocks, several measuring up to 5.6 magnitude, in the 10 hours after the quake, said seismological experts at the Bhaba Atomic Center.
Because of the aftershocks, “We have asked people to move out of old buildings,” Panya said
Officials said 2,063 deaths were all recorded in Gujarat, including hundreds in Ahmedabad, where buildings swayed for more than two minutes. Ten people died in Pakistan when two houses collapsed.
Authorities in India said 3,200 people were injured. No more damage or injuries were reported.
The epicenter was near Bhuj, a desert town of 150,000 people in Gujarat. Ninety percent of the houses in Bhuj were damaged, said Cabinet minister Pramod Mahajan. Police Officer P.I. Kanpuri said 1,400 people in Bhuj district had been killed.
The area was plunged into darkness. At least four planes carrying soldiers, paramedics, food, medicine and tents landed at Bhuj’s air force base, said R.K. Dhinga, an air force spokesman in New Delhi.
More Top Picks Best Drawing Tablets For Beginners
Bhuj’s main hospital, run by the air force, was crammed with seriously injured people. Nearly 1,000 injured residents, most wrapped in blankets against the night chill, were camping outside the hospital waiting their turn, the Star television network reported.
The quake did no damage to the two 220-megawatt nuclear plants in Gujarat, authorities said, but gas pipelines, most power supply stations, phone lines and water service were knocked out across the arid state, which is prone to drought.
In Ahmedabad, a center of India’s textile industry, as many as 50 multistory buildings crumbled. Hundreds of people besieged the fire station asking for help to dig out relatives, said fire chief Rajesh Bhat.
Corpses were piled up on the veranda of the N.S. Hospital, while patients overflowing into the hallways wailed and screamed with broken limbs and bleeding wounds. Press Trust of India reported 70 people died awaiting treatment.
The Indian government said it was flying 10,000 tents, 10,000 tons of grain, 20 doctors and surgeons, and communications and seismology experts to Gujarat. Vajpayee sent his home minister, Lal K. Advani, who said the death toll “could be 1,000 or more.”
In Ahmedabad, about 70 children and some teachers were feared dead in the debris of their school building, while 19 students were believed trapped in a collapsed college elsewhere in the city.
Vajpayee made no appeal for international aid, saying those needs were being assessed.
President Bush, the United Nations and Pakistani army ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf sent condolences. Bush said the United States is willing to provide assistance. The quake was the most powerful to strike India since Aug. 15, 1950, when an 8.5 magnitude temblor killed 1,538 people in Assam state.