A devastating earthquake struck Nepal on April 25. Prime Minister Narendra Modi reacted immediately, held an emergency meeting and gave directions to straightaway send maximum aid to Nepal. Within four hours, the Army and National Disaster Management Authority teams were airborne in Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft on their way to Kathmandu. Never before has a head of government reacted so promptly to aid a neighbour in grave distress. All-out aid from India poured into Kathmandu round the clock but the task is stupendous, particularly of reaching out to remote areas. Mr Modi has had experience in dealing with a devastating earthquake in Kutch. His personal leadership in this hour of crisis has been most commendable.
India and Nepal have unique relations with common cultural, civilisational, religious and historical heritage. Fifty thousand soldiers from Nepal serve in the Indian Army and there are well over a lakh Nepalese citizens serving in civilian appointments besides nearly two lakh ex-servicemen of the Indian Army in Nepal.
Nepalese soldiers have fought in an exemplary manner for India in every war for the previous two centuries, earning a well-deserved reputation for bravery in battle. For Indian officers with Gorkha Regiments, Nepal is their professional home. I happen to be one of them. As a young officer when there were no roads in Nepal, I trekked to remote areas of Nepal to meet our serving and retired soldiers. As adjutant general of the Indian Army, and later as India’s ambassador to Nepal, I was associated with several development projects there. I am glad all Gorkha Regiments have taken a big initiative in sending teams led by Indian officers to the homes of our serving and retired soldiers. Reconstruction and rehabilitation in Nepal will take months. Our eight Gorkha Regiments should each have a detachment for the next six months or more in their recruiting zones under an officer with engineer and medical support to complete the stupendous task of rehabilitation.
Over eight decades ago, on January 15, 1934, I saw the disastrous Bihar earthquake in which 30,000 people perished. The epicentre then was in Bihar which suffered more than Nepal. This time it has been the other way round. I was then eight years old and recall hearing a deafening rumbling noise. I ran down two storeys on what I felt was a swinging staircase. Our house being under construction, the staircase had no banister. Patna suffered a lot, but the damage in Muzaffarpur and Monghyr was much more. Bihar has been our worst-hit state in 2015.
There was no foreign aid or instant communication in 1934. There were also no aircraft at that time. A British battalion was located in the cantonment near Patna, but we did not see the troops doing any relief work. Perhaps that was not then included in the charter of duties for the Army. After Independence, the task of the Army was defined. Their primary task was to defend the country from external aggression, and secondary to aid civil authority to restore order or during a disaster, whether natural or manmade. The Bihar government provided relief assistance but the relief organised by President Rajendra Prasad, collecting donations from all over the country, running free kitchens and distributing blankets and warm clothing, was much more than what the government provided. Mahatma Gandhi toured the earthquake-affected areas and was happy to see all the relief work done by Dr Rajendra Prasad and the Bihar Relief Committee that he had set up. Gandhi called Rajendra Prasad Desh Ratna.
My second experience of an earthquake was on October 8, 2005, when I was the governor of Jammu and Kashmir. The earthquake started just when my helicopter was touching the ground at the helipad in Baramulla. Our helicopter started swaying. The general commanding the division had come to receive me. I cancelled my programme at Baramulla and the general and I flew soon after the earthquake to Uri and Tithwal where much damage had taken place. The epicentre of this earthquake was at Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and some 80,000 people had been killed. Our casualties were 1,000 dead as only village hamlets in the mountains were seriously affected. The Valley floor, including Srinagar and Baramulla, had no casualties though the walls of some buildings had cracked.
The Army has a large presence in the mountains on the border where the civil administration is virtually non-existent. It immediately started rescue and relief operations. Mountain tracks to villages had been obliterated due to landslides. Small helicopters were used to evacuate villagers to Uri and Tithwal where hospitals were put up in tents. Minor surgery and treatment was carried out in field hospitals, serious cases evacuated in bigger helicopters to civil and military hospitals in Srinagar. Very serious cases were evacuated in Air Force planes to All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. No one died due to lack of medical care, food or shelter. Initially tents and later prefabricated shelters were put up. As part of rehabilitation, the Army put up two model villages, one each in Uri and Tithwal, with all modern facilities. The like of these did not exist anywhere in India. While we were conducting relief operations, the Pakistan Army was repairing its defences anticipating that India may launch an attack. They did not do much relief work for their people. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (renamed Jamaat-ud-Dawa) earned many kudos for extensive relief work in their earthquake-affected areas. As a gesture of goodwill we opened our medical clinics near the Line of Control for earthquake-affected victims on the other side.
Scientists have been trying to develop the capability to predict earthquakes. Both Nepal and the Indo-Gangetic Plain are in the seismic zone, prone to periodic severe earthquakes as a result of continental shift. We not only need to have disaster management plans, but it is equally important to ensure that buildings in earthquake-prone areas are earthquake-resistant. Most of the casualties occur when buildings collapse. Our smart cities should have buildings built to withstand earthquakes and existing buildings should be retrofitted where possible. Assam-type houses, which were earthquake resistant, had ikoru (bamboo and reed mesh) in plaster set in wooden frames as walls and tin roofs. Modern technology for such buildings has been developed in Japan. Another requirement in mountain areas is to have guide walls protracting habitation from landslides.
The writer, a retired lieutenant-general, was Vice-Chief of Army Staff and has served as governor of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir
