Earthquake - My Experience
54I was sleeping in my room. It was 26th . Great Day For India , but
holiday for most of Indians. I had watched tv till late night , played
with my neighbour's kid till 2 am. So was sleeping when my bed started
shaking and a loud noise was heard. Noise which was strange ,which i
had never heard before. I woke up and my mom was screaming my name with
panic in her voice. Next moment i was running along with my younger
sister ,mom and dad. Before I exited the door , i realised my elder
sister hasnt come out yet. So i screamed at top of my voice to call her
. My mom informed me that she had gone to her class. She use to run
classes at that time. Next thing i remember is all four of us ,along
with many others were running on stair case. We live in 7th floor so my
inner thoughts were we would not be able to make it and building will
collapse before we manage to reach even 4th floor. Never the less we
ran. My dad's head had got injured because of debris coming down from
the building. I did try to put my hand over his head. My dad cannot see
and so we were trying to move as fast as possible taking into account
his blindness. We could reach only 6th floor and finally building got
split into two ,while other half collapsed. We were sitting of suriving
stair case of six floor with no way to get down.Silence!!!!
Next
thing i remember is silence. Pin drop silence . There were around 30
people of stair case and none could react. After 5 odd minutes sense
dawned on some one and she opened door of sixth floor flat. We all went
in. We were wondering how would we get down. Also question were coming
into mind would we ever get down. My neighbour Janak Bhai (living
opposite to my house ) was crying .He has seen his own wife ,daughter
in collapsed part . I tried vaguely consoling him . His daughter was
same with whom i was playing the previous night. 3 year old kid.
From
balacony of sixth floor flat i saw people standing on ground floor. All
eyes were stuck to us . I could see my elder sister crying. I asked her
to look for bhabhi and palak ( Janak Bhai's Family). She informed me
that all are trying to get fire brigade but most of fire bridage have
gone to other buildings !!!!.
Our first hope of surviving came
with a worker who paints building came up with rope. That was first
time we thought may be we can get down. Half An hour had passed and we
all were still stucked up . I remember some idiot on the ground floor
displaying his great knowledge that another earth quake is expected to
come. ha ha ha. I felt like beating this man up. We were stuck ,we
didnt have anywhere to go. We had 15 women , around 5 kids and 5 odd
elderly people with us and this fundoo person giving his prophecy.
Fortunately that didnt turn out to be true.
Finally RSS people
arrived with ropes . They started rescuing people from fourth floor
first. Then they came to sixth floor and started getting people down
one by one. My biggest worry was that how would my dad get down. He
could not see. My mom got down easily . Thanks to her village
experience . My sister too could easily get down. Slowly we were only
four people + 1 Rss left. But one was my dad out of 4. RSS volunteer
took my dad on his shoulders and started getting down. I had my fingers
crossed but finally he did get down . I got relieved. I too got down .
It was 2.5 hour stay on 6th floor.
That day we had seen power of
nature. It has taken more than two years to build the flats and it took
just around minute and half to collapse half of the structure.
Before
we were stuck on sixth floor some one was general manager ,some was
successful business man ,some was bank manager ,some was struggler but
on that day we all were human beings humbled by nature ,praying for
safety.
More than 30 lives were lost from our building that day.
Many were kids. 8 years have passed. But still when memories come back
,same fear,helplessness comes into my mind.
I have never
believed in kismat , luck but that day we were lucky. We were plain
lucky. No intellect , no logic , simple luck saved us.
Its basic
characteristic of live that it moves on. We did rebuild the structure
,it took us 4 years to reconstruct it. 15% was given by government and
85% all building dewellers pooled in. It has been 15 months that we
have been staying in same 7th floor.
Lives lost cant come back ,
flat did. Nothing is as precious as live. May the souls of all those
who lost life in earth quake ,rest in peace. Aameen...
