By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Feb 1 2001 (IPS)

Having welcomed badly-needed foreign help to cope with the aftermath of the country’s worst natural disaster, India is now finding it hard to handle the flow of material assistance into the quake-hit western coastal Gujarat state.

Vast amounts of relief equipment and material are piling up at various distribution centres in the state where the Jan. 26 temblor flattened several towns, killing more than 20,000 people and injuring tens of thousands.

More than a quarter of a million people have become homeless and international relief agencies have mounted what is perhaps the biggest such effort so far in the world.

This includes a huge field hospital, capable of treating more than 1,000 patients a day and set up in the worst-hit town of Bhuj — 20 km from the epicentre of the quake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale.

The hospital, put up by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, is reported to be the world’s largest field hospital.

Aircraft carrying relief material from several nations are landing regulary in the relatively large airport in the city of Ahmedabad, where several high-rise buildings collapsed during the quake.

Relief flights are also landing at the small airport in Bhuj, which was damaged by the quake. These included three planes that carried 100 tonnes of equipment for the Red Cross.

This is the first time India has allowed foreign rescue and rehabilitation workers into the country after a natural disaster.

More than 400 foreign rescue workers are using sophisticated search and rescue equipment to save survivors, buried under the rubble of collapsed houses.

However, according to media reports from the quake-devastated area Thursday, both foreign and Indian rescue and relief workers, were complaining.

Newspapers and television channels quoted Red Cross’ Patrick Fuller as saying that relief shipments flown into Bhuj were piling up at the small airport in the town.

“It takes a long time to to clear stuff through the airport as there is no lifting equipment and we don’t have enough volunteers to simply shift everything by hand,” Fuller was quoted as saying.

An Israeli team which flew in to Bhuj with two mobile hospitals, was reported complaining that they could not get their equipment out into the field for hours.

Television channels also showed Indian Air Force personnel, who have been flying in relief material to Bhuj, complaining of slow clearance at the airport.

There were reports of villagers begging for food on the highway between Bhuj and Anjar, another quake-devastated town.

Officials involved in disaster management told the national news agency, United News of India (UNI) Thursday, that much of the chaos in Gujarat was due to the absence of a disaster management system.

The officials regretted that the Indian government had failed to keep its word to set up a natural disaster management machinery, after a devastating cyclone killed over 20,000 people in eastern coastal Orissa state two years ago.

India is one of the world’s most natural disaster-prone nations, with earthquakes, cyclones and droughts striking the country almost every other year.

Cyclones arising from the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal ravage the country’s western and eastern coasts. Big earthquakes now strike across the length and breadth of the country, including areas that were once considered safe from seismic risks.

Between the years 1988 and 1997, natural disasters, on average, annually killed 5,116 people and affected another 24 million people in the country, according to a study published last year by the international aid agency, Oxfam.

R.B. Singh, convenor of the independent Disaster Studies Research Group, attributes the poor state of earthquake preparedness to outdated maps.

Singh, who teaches geography in a leading higher education institution in the national capital, says authorities must use the latest remote sensing data in preparing seismic zone maps.

Moreover, building laws in high-risk, seismic zones should be strictly enforced while older buildings must be modified to make them safer, he says.

Tackling natural disasters is still the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture. The Home Ministry responds only when law and order is threatened, according to the Oxfam report.

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