Indian earthquake: Your experiences

Concerned friends and relatives are looking for information from the disaster zone. If you have any information that you think might help, please e-mail us using the form at the bottom of the page

Have your heard news of loved ones as a result of your e-mail to Talking Point? Please let us know.

This debate is now closed. Read a selection of your comments below.

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Your reaction

Our heart is full of sorrow and grief due to this natural calamity

Vipiraj Prasad, India

Our heart is full of sorrow and grief due to this natural calamity and we, three sisters and our parents, extend our fullest co-operation to the victims who had felt this quake in the morning in our flat in New Mumbai (Kalamboli) but no one believed our experience until it was flashed in the news. Pray to God to keep all in peace and harmony.
Vipiraj Prasad, India

A neighbour of my father's just left with 2 truckloads of supplies (all organised by him) from Northern India for Gujrat. It is the work of the ordinary people like him that deserves special mention. May God be with the people in these difficult times.
Mahesh Prasad, USA

Today (Sat 3/2/01) there were rumours that a bigger shock was to occur and the prediction was made by a Gandhinagar based astrologer. A major tremor was felt around 8:40 resulting in all the streets being deserted when I was going to my office around 10:00am. Everyone felt that doomsday has come. Nothing major has happened today and all the predictions have been proven wrong. The astrologers making such predictions should be charged with spreading false rumours and at least the media should not help them by printing such stories. The vernacular dailies had a field day spreading such rumours which is really sad in this hour of crisis. My heart goes out to the people whom I see sleeping in their cars and tents when they have full fledged houses waiting for them.
Ravi Dixit, Ahmedabad, India

We at Motikhavdi village at Jamnagar in Gujarat escaped without any untoward incidents arising out of the earthquake

T M Subramanian, India

We at Motikhavdi village at Jamnagar in Gujarat escaped without any untoward incidents arising out of the earthquake. We sincerely express our condolence to the families of all who have lost their near and dear ones. We are continuously working towards giving all possible help to the victims. We are continuously praying to God to contain whatever has happened without any further damage arising out of post quake shock wave and tremors.
T M Subramanian, India

Yesterday evening I visited the Common Hospital and to-day morning (Sat, 3/2/01) the Military Hostpital Khadiki in Pune city. I am glad to inform you that all patients are safe and sound. Military doctors and nurses are giving best services to these Gujarat quake victims. Many well wishers are visiting regularly even Christians are praying sincerely in their churches and visiting them regularly in the hospitals. To the best of my knowledge there is a great concern of the city people for these victims. Victims are not lacking anything since the Gujarati people those who live in Pune city are also giving their best services in visiting the victims in the hospital regularly. This is for your kind information. If any body knows any current news about Gandhidham and Khandala, please let me know as soon as possible because we are sending around 70 volunteers under the banner of one organisation. My e-mail: [e-mail]
Lalit Mohan Jena, Pune, India

My brother and his family had a narrow escape

Dharam, USA

I have finally established contact with my family who live in Gandhidham. Fortunately, everyone in my immediate family is safe. However, there has been extensive loss of life and property in this small town of about 90,000 people. My brother and his family had a narrow escape. I heard that one of the most prominent obstetricians in the town lost her life after she managed to pull out all her patients to safety. I have been overcome with emotions numerous times in the last 4 days thinking about this tragedy. I have sent in my contribution to the International Red Cross but that act seems so insignificant compared to the scale of this tragedy. My prayers for all those who lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy.
Dharam, USA

I was chatting with my sister at 1:00pm, who is in Rajkot with my parents and suddenly there was no reply for a while. I panicked, then after a while she said that she had to run out as there was an earthquake again. I pray God to be kind to all.
Rajal, Bangalore, India

On 29th morning I was sitting on the sofa and watching television news - hearing the tragedy occurred in Gujrat. Suddenly the glass in the living room started shaking, my sister was sitting opposite to me reading and she was shaking along with the sofa. Thank God it stopped in a couple of seconds my parents and my wife rushed to the living room to know what happened - we told them we felt the earthquake - it was a terrible experience.
Rajesh Keshavan, Bnagalore, India

I was in Satellite Road area at the time of quake. It was around 8:45 AM and I was getting ready for Republic Day Parade. Suddenly everything started shaking so I started screaming telling everyone to go out of the house. Initially it was very slow shaking and after 5-10 seconds I felt like it is slowing down so went inside the house to turn of the stove that was left on. As soon as I came out all of a sudden it started shaking too much. I felt like I was standing on a shaking tower and someone was shaking it too much. It lasted for two minutes. After the shake I tried to call my friends place who is in Maninagar but there were no connections. The power was out and no news on the radio.

After 20-30 minutes we started hearing news from everywhere in the surrounding area and also the number of dead and injured started climbing up. Even there were rumours that there will be two more quakes within the next two hours. Everyone was worried and outside of the house.

By the grace of god me and my family survived the quake without any injury and damage to the property.
Thank you all who replied to the message that I posted on the BBC message board about my relatives.
Gaurang Patel, Satelite Road, India

We were in the jaws of death waiting for it to gulp us

Vandana, India

It was really horrifying morning of 26th when I was just doing little packing since we were going to leave for Adipur. My parents were getting ready to go to some friend's house. When suddenly a noise started, the floor swung so much that we could hold our own support.

My father and I stood near the balcony watching all buildings shaking and collapsing. My father stopped me from going to another room and held me near balcony trying to judge what was going to happen next. We were in the jaws of death waiting for it to gulp us.

Luckily our building did not collapse completely, but now we had no way to go out. Any small jerk could have caused the building to collapse. With help of our neighbours and rope we managed to get to down. We saw many injured and dead people as we hurriedly made our ways through stones and water towards river which had open space. Own town was almost 100% destroyed all buildings, general hospitals, hotels, schools nothing saved but we really thank god for bringing us back without even slight injury.
Vandana, India

I am a survivor from Bhuj and even now my hands are shaking
Preity, Amedabad, Bhuj

I was at Nadiad 45kms south of Ahmedabad, when this earthquake struck at 08:48AM. The night before I slept late and was sleeping on the 4th floor of my house when I was woken up with the cries of my wife and my mother shouting from below who "saw" the house moving, with strange noises from the Earth. It was a feeling as if one was moving in a fast train...
The greatest fear to me was while running down from the 4th floor of my house fearing that myself and my wife would be buried alive, but luckily managed do flee safely outside the house, into the open.
I can only thank God for saving the lives of me, my family and our property.
AP Dixit, Netherlands

Today people are facing the mental trauma after the major quake. Rumours are spreading and small tremors are happening still. No new building collapse was reported. everybody is sleeping outside the house. All we pray for the rest of the departed souls.
Sujith Nair, India

My Uncle's office was cracked and even collapsed

Dhwani Pandya, India/ USA

It was approximately 5:00 in the morning and my uncle from New York called to say that there was a powerful earthquake in India and mostly in the state of Gujarat, where my relatives from my mom's side live. I got up and turned on the TV and was watching the news. After hearing more dreadful stuff, I called India and they said that everything was fine and all the family members are here, but my Uncle's office was cracked and even collapsed. But we were not sad about the collapsing of the office, when we knew that they were safe we were happy.
Dhwani Pandya, India/ USA

My wife and baby are in Bombay at this moment. I spoke to her this afternoon, she says it was early in the morning, she was sitting with her brother watching TV when the room shook, the cabinet started swaying (and things falling off) and the chair that her brother was sitting on, moved across the floor. It was over pretty quickly, and nobody in their community was hurt.
Francis Anderson, UK

I am a geophysicist engaged on a seismic survey in the Gulf of Khambhat in Northern India. We were recording data at the time of the tremor. The boat vibrated for a couple of minutes and the recording instruments went off the scale. All our thoughts were with the Indian people: it was obvious immediately that this was a major quake that would cause widespread damage, destruction and death.
John Quirk, India

It was the most incredible experience I have ever witnessed. I am working in oil exploration in the southern region of Sindh, about 130kms south east of Hyderabad. The initial sensation was similar to a very deep explosion and then the whole area began to move extremely vigorously. It lasted for about 30 seconds but the ground was still moving for minutes afterwards. This area is pretty sparsely populated and thank God more people were not hurt.
Andrew George, Pakistan

I have had to evacuate my hotel and am now sitting outside in a tent using my laptop.
Amandeep Bhogal, India

My mom was cooking in the kitchen and suddenly the tiles started skidding

Ketan Thakkar, USA

My parents and relatives called me from Maninagar-Ahmedabad. My mom was cooking in the kitchen and suddenly the tiles started skidding. She felt dizziness and hallucinations. My sister was trying to light the gas with a lighter and she thought there was a shock in the lighter twice. My cousin sister was looking at the shaking chair, and she started crying like something wrong happened. This is very sad. We all pray for everybody and their family who became victims. We hope that politicians will not try to make money or votes out of this and just do the good work.
Ketan Thakkar, USA

My parents are in Ahmedabad, and after several attempts, I was able to talk to them. They are all fine but they said many buildings have been completely demolished, trapping many people inside. I would like to pass my condolences to those who lost loved ones, and pray for the well being of the rest.
Sanjay Shah, New Jersey, USA

I am a press reporter for the Daily UMMAT here in Pakistan in Badin Distt. Here in Distt. Badin, the city of Kadhan is so much infected by the earthquake and earth parted between centre and water is getting out from it. Danger has remained constant for three days. Some schools remained closed on Saturday.
M. Arsalan Yaseen Arain, Pakistan.

At the American School in Karachi we felt a rolling motion for about fifteen seconds. We could tell by the length of the earthquake that some of our neighbours in the region were in serious trouble.
Dave Reeves, Pakistan

I hope the affected people receive all help possible

Namrata, India

I was sleeping in the morning when the 'quake took place. My bed started shaking. This woke me up and I was surprised. The sudden realisation that an earthquake was happening shook me. I hope the affected people receive all help possible. May God help them.
Namrata, India

It has been the most horrifying and panicky experience of my life and still the terror continues due to after shocks. A building collapsed just opposite my house on 26th Friday morning at around 8.50 a.m. Six people of the ten of the same family trapped inside died. The great grand old man of the family who was first saved from the debris said please save one girl who had come to study at his place and then the rest of his family members. I and we all salute his gesture.We have been continuously sending help to Bhuj and shall be obliged to be of help and provide any information of Ahmedabad.
Dilip Agrawal Navrangpura Ahmedabad - Gujarat India

Tears and comments will not relieve us from the pain. We need helping hands to take care my people. Join the rehabilitation teams if you can. Governments will give the money - we need people to help.
Shyam, India

We had mild tremors at around 8:10am, which created panic among people. But there were no casualties. Most of us are trying to give their best for relief operations organised by NGO's.
Punit Prasad, Bangalore, India

I have read the accounts of your devastating experiences with great sadness. I was in the centre of the 6.6 quake in L.A. in 1994 and the descriptions brought the feelings of terror right back to me. I wish there were some practical way of helping you from such a distance. My heart goes out to you and my thoughts are with you all.
Andrew Holder, UK

We are at our building in morning 8.50 am and suddenly the building started shaking, all the people rushed towards the ground but some of them failed to get out and were caught in falling slabs of building. We have lost many of our friends and relatives. But one miracle happened - one person had their Cell phone with him and he call from under debris and said " I am living please save me."
The rescue workers have started rescue operation to save him and after 1 hour that guy came alive from the debris.
Mars infotech team, India

I have a message for Ajay, India, who is criticising Indian government. Even God help those who help themselves. No city in the world could be prepared for such calamity. Instead of pleading the west, try to help govt in rehabilitation work.
Amit Jain, Canada

We experienced the earthquake on Friday...everything was shaking ...I was in college at that time we were asked to go outside. We all Pakistanis are deeply shocked on the disaster which took place in India on Friday. We all share their sorrow ..
Zahr, Pakistan

The whole country stands with Gujarat. Lets all pray that no more causalities occur. Please, instead of criticising the country for its inadequacy in relief measures let us all do something which can help the remaining people in Gujarat to lead a normal life. Donate freely to International Red Cross or Gujarat relief fund and other organisations. LET US ALL STAND BY THE PEOPLE OF GUJARAT.
Balamourougan, Canada

Waiting for news about relatives has been very agonising. Finally I heard from a friend who says that Madhapur near Bhuj is ok - some damage but no known casualties. Hope this helps. God Bless.
J Shivji, USA

After witnessing the catastrophe first hand I am in a complete daze. Only one thing keeps ringing in my mind. The line from the Bhagavadgita: "NOW I AM BECOME DEATH, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS..." I guess I have summed up everybody's feelings There is still however, the human spirit which will eventually triumph.
Avinash Solanki, Ahmedabad, India