Latur’s experience of devastation

Mangrool, about 20 km from Latur, appeared as though several bulldozers had run amok there. But this was no exception. The earthquake that had rocked 72 villages with a population of 150,000 had taken a toll of more than 30,000, according to newspaper reports. About 40 villages in Latur and Osmanabad districts had been devastated. The actual number of casualties will never be known because, despite official claims, several people were left under the debris.By all accounts, the state machinery in Bombay responded quickly to the disaster. Within two hours, the police had informed chief secretary N. Raghunathan and chief minister Sharad Pawar. Pawar took off immediately for Latur with two ministers to supervise relief operations and Raghunathan began despatching rescue teams. The army was called in and the Union government set up a crisis management group. The first plane-load of doctors and equipment from Delhi arrived the same day.

However, little relief reached those it was intended for until the army moved in. The first troops reached only on the afternoon of September 30. In most villages, relief operations began only much later because the troops had to come in from as far as Ahmadnagar and Secunderabad.

Though the first medical teams reached the areas within four hours, they were too few and their resources too limited even to provide first aid in the 40 devastated villages. Accessible villages were the first to get relief. For instance, a medical team reached Killari the first village off the Latur-Umargar road by 7 am. However, victims in Mangrool, which is in the interior, had to wait till the afternoon.

There was chaos and mayhem in the villages, with the injured beginning others to search the debris for their kin. M.R. Dukere, one of the first doctors to reach Killari, said, ‘‘As we were treating the injured, they asked us to search the debris first’’.

However, searching the rubble for people was a job for the army. Police and other volunteers did not have even basic equipment to clear the rubble. Said an irked army officer in Mangrool, ‘‘Civilian rescue teams scurried all over, while the police lurked around with sticks. We were the first to start clearing the tonnes of rubble.’’ But even army soldiers were short of spades and shovels.

Rescue works was hampered also because few villagers were in a state to identify sites where people might have been trapped. ‘‘Without such assistance, looking for survivors was like looking for a needle in a hay-stack,’’ said Lt. Col. Arvind Mahajan, overseeing relief operations in Sastur village of Osmanabad district…

Excerpted from a news report carried in ‘Down to Earth’, October 31, 1993.