Tags:
Journalism of Courage
ANJAR, JANUARY 28: Twelve-year-old Aastha Karsan shudders as she walks through the lanes dividing rows of crumbled buildings. The last time she crossed these lanes was on the morning of January 26. She was marching along the students of 20 schools on the Republic Day when the ground shook.After a few seconds, the narrow lane had been caved in with debris and the children trapped inside. In the quake that left the town of Anjar flattened, 400 students with national flags held close to their chest and 50 teachers died. Aastha survived.
‘‘After I was trapped inside with a boulder on my leg, I could hear teachers saying ‘Bhagwan ka naam lo’ (take God’s name). After a while, somebody pulled me out.’’ She says she was walking in the middle of the procession with her sister when it happened. The lane has become inaccessible making it impossible to even extricate the bodies.
The residents of Anjar are angry. Beside some voluntary agencies, the Army and the administration are yet to show up here. The entire old city of Anjar comprising the main market has been reduced to a rubble. The residents catch hold of visitors angrily and refuse to let them enter the affected area.
‘‘People are coming to loot. We do not have adequate police protection,’’ they say guarding the ruined streets. The old city as it was called was filled choc-a-block with nearly 3,000 shops and residences on top. They seem to have crumbled like a pack of cards, some still moving with fresh tremors.
The only bulldozer that seems to be working has been hired by the locals. Only once has a truck come with food packets. However, Defence Minister George Fernandes said that the Army would reach there by this evening.
The place has become more of a tourist spot with vehicles coming in for curiosity value. The Bhuj administration claims that the doctors and food packets have been despatched but the residents have not received them. The distance between the two cities is just 45 kilometres.
There are other areas from where reports of near-total destruction are just coming in. Anjar’s extent of destruction was known since yesterday but no help has reached even today. In places such as Nalia and Nakhatrana, from where stories of destruction are just trickling in, the people who survived the quake are still living the nightmare.
