Eyewitness: Shattered lives on edge of existence

Dominic Nutt: First hand account of earthquake horror

Dominic Nutt, an emergencies officer with Christian Aid who has just returned to the UK from the earthquake zone in the Indian state of Gujarat, writes for CNN.

(CNN) -- The road from Ahemdabad to Bhuj in northern Gujarat is not one to be travelled lightly. On either side of the highway whole villages and towns are reduced to rubble.

There is no escaping the sight of destruction -- vast swathes of land appear as if they have been subjected to a mass campaign of carpet bombing.

The pictures in the papers and on television cannot do justice to the devastation.

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The village of Voudh, about 60 miles from the epicentre of the earthquake, had, until Friday, a population of around 9,000. Only 2,000 are alive today.

The village was totally destroyed -- no building remains intact. Clambering over the rubble to speak to some of the survivors is a gut-wrenching task. It is a mass grave and the smell of death hangs thickly in the humid air.

Standing there for 10 minutes we see two bodies being removed. One is alive -- just -- and there is celebration. The other, twisted by the impact of falling concrete, has been set at a grotesque angle by rigor mortis.

The stretcher-bearers wear handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses and swat away the clouds of flies which swarm around the body.

All around are funeral pyres which burn throughout the day and onto which the bodies are quickly placed. This disaster has little respect for human dignity.

I visited the remote village of Lodai, a few miles from the border with Pakistan and the closest community to the epicentre. Here 22 people died and the whole village was destroyed.

Amid the ruins we are offered tea in cracked saucers. The village elders point to a heap of rubble about 15 feet high and tell us that was their food store.

Christian Aid's Indian partner organisation, CASA, was the only group to have reached this cut-off village.

Gujerat is in the grip of a three-year drought. Crop yields are down by 90 per cent in some areas. There is no spare food to be had.

Before the earthquake struck, people across the region were already on the edge of existence

Many are illiterate and finding work elsewhere -- always difficult -- will now be nigh impossible for many.

The area's biggest employer, the port of Kandla, is in ruins as are many other factories. Infrastructure - roads, telephone lines and electricity generators are all out of commission.

The immediate priority is to feed and shelter the survivors. Then the massive task of re-building can begin. It will take years. Just removing the rubble will take a mammoth effort.

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Nic Robertson: Counting the dead in Bhuj
January 31, 2001

Christian Aid
Disasters Emergency Committee

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