Ist Person: Of a quake, a damaged school and a hospital, and my own home

Bhaderwah:  I was driving home with a family member for lunch when I almost lost control over the wheel. Instinctively, we thought it might have been a mechanical fault. Panic-struck, I stopped the vehicle in the middle of the road. Then I realised that the earth was shaking and the nearby buildings on Chobia link road swayed violently enough. I thought these buildings might come down on us.

The quake seemed to last forever. When the tremors stopped, panic quickly set in. People were petrified. I thought of my family and rushed home to discover they were okay.

Seconds later, I realised it was a massive earthquake as we could listen to loud screams, especially of panicked parents. Most of them were mothers running towards schools to know about the safety of their children.

Fearing some untoward incident has happened, I started capturing videos while driving. I stopped my car outside Blue Ribbon Higher Secondary School from where screams could be heard.

Panicked, I also ran towards the school and bumped into principal Swarn Singh Jamwal, who was rushing the screaming children to the nearby paddy fields and assuring parents of the safety of their wards.

Some children were crying out of fear and wanted to meet their parents and go back home.

My phone started ringing. As I picked the phone, my scared mother informed me that the wall of our neighbours house had collapsed on our roof.

As I was heading home, my mother called me again to instead visit my younger sister’s place, who was inconsolable as she was alone and their newly built house had developed huge cracks.

As I reached my sister’s place, I saw her crying in her lawn while my mother was trying to console her.

My phone again rang. This time my nephew (elder sister’s son) informed me that SDH Bhaderwah building had partially collapsed and some patients were injured.

I rushed to the hospital. The scenes there were scary as patients were out in the open.

Some of them could barely stand and were lying on the ground with no attendants while others were trying to stop the bleeding after removing angiocaths in panic to run for safety.

A hospital staffer Tariq Ahmed told me that two patients had been injured and had been shifted to ‘Emergency’ as the tiles of the roof had fallen on them while other patients were shifted to a safer ‘Covid Ward’ in the basement of the building.

I found a woman crying in pain surrounded with panicked family members and concerned staff of R&B Department.

When I enquired from an engineer, Rizwan Wani what the matter was, he told me that their colleague Kaynat Tabassum had been injured as a portion of the wall of her office had fallen on her.

Just then, someone called me for help. As, I rushed towards them, I saw blood oozing from the wrist of a 15-year-old boy, Israr’s.

His father Showket Ali Butt of Dandi village said that his son was in the ward when the roof collapsed.

As I drove back home, I received a panic call from a Lumbardar of tribal Gujjar community, Muhammad Hussain Chechi.

Chechi told me that a dozen mud houses including his own had been damaged partially at Jaie meadow and all of them were in the open with their cattle.

When I reached home, I witnessed the damage to my own house. Now it was time to remove the debris from the roof.