After Massive India Earthquake
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The 7.9-magnitude quake rocked India and Pakistan but was also felt in Bangladesh and Nepal, with the worst damage seen in India's western state of Gujarat.
The overall death toll was 651 and expected to climb, Cabinet minister Pramod Mahajan said during a break in an emergency meeting held by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
In Gujarat, where desperate relatives begged authorities to dig up their family members from under the debris, Home Minister Haren Pandya said 100 buildings had collapsed.
"The whole state has been affected," he said.
The epicenter of the quake, which struck at 8:46 a.m., was near Bhuj, a desert town of 150,000 in Gujarat and close to the border between India and Pakistan. The death toll in Bhuj was at least 150, said police official G.H. Vasaveda.
Ninety percent of the houses in Bhuj are reported to have been damaged.
In Ahmedabad, a city of 7 million people, at least 200 were dead after as many as 50 multistory buildings collapsed.
Hundreds of Ahmedabad residents besieged the fire station asking for help in digging their relatives out of the collapsed buildings, said fire chief Rajesh Bhat.
"This is an emergency. We are facing a riotous crowd," Bhat said. "A fear psychosis is developing in the city. People have fled their homes and are taking refuge in open fields."
About 70 children and some teachers were feared dead in the debris of their school building in one part of Ahmedabad, while in another district 19 engineering students were believed trapped in their collapsed college.
Baijubahi, an Ahmedabad man who uses only one name, said his wife had died in the earthquake and six members of his family were still trapped in their building.
"The police are trying to persuaded me to go to the hospital for my wife's post-mortem," he said. "I'm more concerned about the rest, who could have survived."
The quake was also felt in Nepal, and an apparent aftershock hit Bangladesh, where hundreds of panicked residents flooded into the streets of Satkhira, on the border with India.
The quake struck as many cities were celebrating India's 51st Republic Day, which commemorates the adoption of the constitution. The temblor caused high-rise buildings to sway from New Delhi to Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Reports of aftershocks came in from around the country.
In the town of Surat — where police reported at least 31 dead — three people were killed in a stampede at a diamond factory. When the quake hit, diamond workers in the three-story factory crowded into a narrow stairwell and tried to push their way to the only exit, crushing three to death, said police official Vineet Gupta in Surat, 185 miles southeast of the quake's epicenter.
In India's capital, New Delhi, bleachers set up for the Republic Day parade swayed just before Vajpayee and other dignitaries arrived for the three-hour military display.
In Pondicherry, on the southeastern coast, the crowd watching a Republic Day parade panicked briefly, fleeing the festivities, but were quickly calmed by loudspeaker announcements.
Millions of Hindus at the world's largest religious gathering in Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh, more than 1,000 miles east of the epicenter, felt the ground sway under them. No injuries were reported.
In India's financial capital, Bombay, people rushed onto the streets and held onto doorways as the high-rise skyscrapers swayed.
On June 16, 1819, another quake in western India killed between 1,500 and 2,000 people.
Vajpayee has put the Indian army on alert and sent a rapid-action force to search for survivors.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), January 26, 2001