Shook ones

Natural Calamities teach us that the earth, in which we have lived for millennia, still holds the cards to the destruction of humanity no matter how much we evolve. Today, the Kangra Earthquake would devastate the scales.

Rubble of the aftermath of the Kangra Earthquake; Source: YouTube

Life on earth is fickle, one moment it's your best life, next you are stuck in a situation where your life can end at any moment. When an earthquake occurs, people who are not used to it go into a state where your mind stops thinking. Time seems to stop, the act of comprehending gone. Such are the forces of nature that humans are nothing but small ants who can get crushed anytime. We are at its mercy.

The Kangra Earthquake, the most devastating earthquake in the history of India, occurred in the Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh and was felt till Punjab. Amritsar, Lahore, Jullunder and Ludhiana, even as far as Kolkata were shaken by the quake.

Number of lives lost? Figures say more than 20,000 people. But what about the people who survived and lost all their financial assets? From another perspective, lives of people were not just lost, they were left to be alive with nothing.

100,000 buildings lost, along with disrupting farming and even killing off around 53,000 animals. Extensive damage to the aqueducts which had been used and constructed for several generations were also damaged leaving way for the younger generation to suffer too.

A 7.8 magnitude on the surface wave magnitude scale was observed, it was felt from Lahore to Kolkata.

In the Rossi-Forel scale, an X intensity was recorded. The highest on the scale. Even 150 km away from the epicentre a VII scale was recorded. The scale was not required to check the intensity of damage to the land around. Landslides occurred, there was the work of lifting the rubble and finding more bodies. What cruel fate lay in waste for the rescuers? To find bodies underneath the rubble. Maybe bodies with some parts missing, or even the parts themselves missing bodies.

2.9 lakhs of money was required to recover from the devastation of the quake, but what would be required to help the survivors recover?