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Amid the ruins a miraculous survivorBHUJ, India -- The discovery of a living 8-month-old baby on Monday has captured the heartbreak and the singular miracles of India's killer earthquake. The rescue was a rare cause for hope following the earthquake, whose damage is now estimated at up to $5.5 billion. Some authorities in India said it was likely that the death toll would rise above 20,000. The number injured was more than 32,000, officials said. Earlier Monday rescue workers plucked two boys and a 90-year-old woman alive from the rubble.
"If after five days you survive it is due to exceptional luck, a cavity large enough and access to water," said Mike Thomas, a member of a British specialist rescue team. India's prime minister acknowledged Monday that his country was ill-prepared for disasters. In the case of the miracle baby, found cradled in his mother's arms and covered in her blood, doctors said the warmth of his mother's body helped him survive three days in the ruins of a collapsed building in Bhuj's Kansara Market. "We saw the baby in the mother's lap, we saw some movement from the baby," said R.K. Thakur, a Border Security Forces assistant commandant. "I took the baby in my hand and I found it was alive." The boy, Murtza Ali, was rushed to a medical center, surviving relatives were found, and the child was conscious and smiling, Thakur said, adding: "It was miraculous." There are few even partly happy endings in western India these days.
Survivors complained Monday that confusion and a lack of equipment was hampering rescue efforts. Rescuers lacked cranes and bulldozers, and many units did not even have generators, making night work impossible without lights. Soldiers hunting for survivors began work at first light and stopped when the sun went down. The hope of finding many more survivors "is dwindling hour by hour, but as long as there is hope, we won't give up," said Joachim Ahrens, who represents a Swiss rescue team in Bhuj. A grim-faced prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who toured Gujarat on Monday, said he was forming a national disaster agency to ensure immediate response to emergencies. "The country is not ready to face such disasters," Vajpayee told reporters in Ahmedabad, Gujarat's economic hub. He also announced federal grants totaling $108 million for the state. In New Delhi on Monday, Agriculture Minister Bhaskar Barua appealed to private aid groups for field hospitals, clothing, volunteers to put up tents and prepare and distribute food, and cranes and other equipment. As recently as Sunday, Barua said it was the policy of his government not to ask for foreign aid. But he said India was thankful for the foreign help it had been offered. Some 20,000 soldiers are working throughout the state to help other rescue workers, some from overseas. The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: U.S. pledges $5 million in aid relief RELATED SITES: U.S. Geological Survey |
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