A Rich Heritage Lost: Observations on the Effects of the Bhuj Earthquake, India

Abstract

In March of 2001 I flew into Bhuj, the city in Gujarat, India that was the center of the area devastated by the earthquake of January 26, 2001. From the air the view of Bhuj belied its true condition. From that distance the city seemed quite normal, with many tall blocks of apartments standing seemingly unharmed. On the ground, however, the scene was quite different. The first close-up view of those same large apartment blocks showed them to be leaning at crazy angles, with their first floors collapsed and their upper walls laced with cracks like a crazed china pot. While the city now contains many modern reinforced concrete buildings, Bhuj was originally an ancient walled city and still has both part of its original fortifications and many historic buildings within the city core. Some of the fort walls had survived the vicissitudes of time, only to be heavily damaged by the earthquake. They looked as if they were cheese nibbled by a giant mouse. The battlements had fallen. Large areas of the facing stone had come off. In some places only the inner rubble stone core remained standing. [O]ne was confronted with a view of total devastation. As far as one could see, everything within view had either totally or partially collapsed. The first view of the inner precincts of the walled city of Bhuj was shocking. In the area immediately inside the city gate, the buildings had almost totally disappeared into rubble piles that lay along either side of the road like great waves. Riding on these waves were the still-whole pieces of the upper floors of broken newer concrete buildings, leaning at crazy angles as if they were riding in surf. These “waves” of rubble were the result of the first phase of plowing to clear the …