Throughout the whole area millions of people have been rendered homeless and are living in makeshift shelters of bamboo poles, salvaged doors and flimsy tarpaulins. There are some regular tents, mainly for the accommodation of the injured, sick and vulnerable, and also for aid workers, army and police. In many places there are whole villages without a single building still standing, and the entire population living in ramshackle encampments on the nearest open space. Sanitation and water cleanliness must be cause for anxiety, although things did appear to be under control in this respect.
Scores of towns and hundreds of villages have been wholly or largely destroyed. It was possible only to see a small proportion, and the examples which follow represent the smallest tip of the iceberg.. The major part of the small town of Vandh, close to Bhachau, with a population of about 16,000, is either destroyed or uninhabitable. The same applies to Anjar, population 75,000, where only a section of the town built properly within the last 25 years or so is still habitable, and whole sections of the older town still remain unexcavated. The sickly sweet smell of death and decay is everywhere. Bhachau itself is even larger, perhaps 120,000, and is just rubble as far as the eye can see. Bhuj, with its 150,000 people and its tottering six and seven story apartment blocks, is the same, There is hardly a single one of the hundreds of schools within 100kms of the epicentre which is still standing, let alone usable. In Morbi, (pop. 180,000) 110 kms as the crow flies, there is widespread damage and loss of life, particularly in the older and more crowded part of the centre around the main bazaar. The hospital is unusable and will have to be demolished, and patients are outside under canopies. Examinations are taking place on trolleys in the open air, and the severest cases have been taken to Rajkot and other places where the damage is much less. Large camps have been set up for the dispossessed, and 5,000 are being fed each day. The Rotary Club of Rajkot Midtown seems to have been particularly active here.
Further away from the epicentre the proportion of destroyed and damaged buildings diminishes. Some places appear to have escaped almost unscathed, others close by are collapsed, depending on the waveform of the shock and the underlying geological formation. Towns and villages built on sandy subsoils have been affected most, even more than 300 kms away. Ahmedabad itself has suffered pockets of damage, in themselves severe and significant, but a very small proportion in relation to the size and population of the city. Every town and village west of the Gulf of Khambat has damaged buildings and many of the occupants even of undamaged buildings are also sleeping outside, reminded by the daily jolts of 5.1 or 5.6 of the imminence of disaster.
But the people are resilient and stubborn. They seem to have accepted the "Will of God" and are putting their lives back together as best they can. They are clearing up and salvaging all they can, from battered cooking pots to reusable bricks and tiles. The basics of life are now there - water, from those wells which are not dry from the drought, or by daily tanker; food, from the fields, the makeshift bazaars and the aid agencies; shelter from the elements, albeit of the most simple kind. Schools are being held normally, but under awnings, and field hospitals are coping with the injured and sick. Indeed, the aid agencies are probably providing a higher level of medical care than before the earthquake. Wherever it is possible, repairable damage is being repaired, structures made safe and reoccupied. Life goes on. There was even a wedding taking place outside my window where I stayed near Morbi, with the whole village in party mood despite the damage there. The people are not broken; they are not sitting there, head in hand, waiting for outsiders to come to their aid. For the most part they are just getting on with it, under the most difficult conditions imaginable. These are the ones who will benefit most from our help.

SO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE NEXT? The damage to the infrastructure, roads, railways, bridges, factories, will take a long time to repair completely, and it will be difficult for many of the people to earn their living again for some time. Farming will return to normal fairly quickly, but even in the villages there is considerable financial dependence on cottage industries, embroidery, craftwork, diamond polishing and so on. The most pressing need seems to me to be for more substantial shelter for the homeless before the monsoon comes, hopefully, in July. The government minister has proclaimed that he will build 800,000 houses by then, but it is difficult to see how this can be remotely possible, when it is yet to be decided what to build, there is considerable argument over the cost/merit of asbestos sheet/galvanised iron, and when there is hardly any water to spare. It also seems likely that what housing is built will be in the largest towns, and that the centralised gov MORE ...