From my first-hand experience in Bhuj, I can imagine the magnitude of the tragedy in Syria and Türkiye and what people there must be going through. I understand that more than 20,000 people have died so far. The images of crashed buildings and roads split apart remind me of Bhuj in 2001.
It had taken me 18-20 hours to reach Bhuj from Mumbai by road. When I reached there, I saw damaged roads, villages vanished, multi-storey buildings collapsed and people trapped inside the rubble. It was heart-breaking to see survivors crying for help and running around in despair.
I was working with an international rescue crew at the time. They were into rescue operations and had come from the UK with an aircraft full of relief material. As a person working in the field of sound, that was one of the most satisfying projects I have been part of. They were carrying with them equipment that helped us trace people trapped inside the rubble.
The instrument is fitted with a stereo microphone system with a censor and infrared cameras. The censor is put inside the rubble and building ruins to trace any presence of life. The body temperature of a living human being or animal trapped inside the rubble is different from its surroundings. That is the way the censor works. One can even sense breathing sounds. The infra-red cameras are then used to trace the exact position of the subject.
It was humbling to be a part of a rescue mission involved in saving lives. I still remember how a 20-year-old boy was pulled out of remains of a building in Bhuj. He was rescued after a 104-hour long ordeal.
He shared his terrifying memories with me. When the earthquake hit, he thought there had been a nuclear explosion. He screamed and screamed, but was heard by none. He realised there was no point in screaming. He experienced the aftershocks and he could hear those who were a part of rescue operations. He waited for the noises to die down and screamed again. That바카라™s how we could locate him with the help of the stereo microphone system.
We managed to trace 7-8 people. I remember tracing a cat caught inside the rubble. Life is precious. When caught in a disaster, human life is no different from that of an animal.
The rescue teams were pulling out people who were alive and they were not in a position to give priority to rescuing lifeless bodies. A man asked us to take his wife out of the ruins of a building. He knew she had died but he lied to us that she had been alive. He desperately wanted us to take her body out.
The whole operation was a life-altering experience for me. I returned to Bhuj after a few weeks. It was traumatic to see the aftermath of the disaster. It was heartbreaking to see people trying to rebuild their lives from broken past.
For me, it was a personal tragedy, too. A dear friend who was also a part of rescue and relief operations passed away a few weeks later. She was working with the Ham radio team. She contracted tuberculosis and passed away at a hospital in Bengaluru.
The Bhuj earthquake was not my first experience with disaster. I was a student at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune when the Latur earthquake struck in 1993. I went there a few days later to shoot a documentary on the impact of the disaster. The Bhuj earthquake, however, was my first experience of being part of rescue operations. Rebuilding life from the remains of a disaster is painful and tough. People in Syria and Türkiye are indeed going through their toughest times.
(As told to Shahina K.K.)
Resul Pookutty is an Oscar and BAFTA-winning sound mixer and designer, filmmaker, writer and philanthropist
