BANGALORE,
India; January 2001 — The Bible Society of India
(BSI) is making an emergency distribution of Scriptures to victims of the earthquake
which devastated India’s western state of Gujarat on January 26, and is
going ahead with urgent repairs to Bible House in Ahmedabad. The news has been
accompanied by an appeal from the UBS for funds to cover the depletion of its
Rapid Response Reserve, which will be meeting the costs.
The list of Scriptures to be distributed includes 5,000 large-print Gospels in Kachchi, 10,000 copies of a Gujarati New Testament entitled Hope for Kachch, 1,000 Bibles with hymnals in various languages, 100,000 copies of Proverbs in Gujarati, and 1,650 Scripture audio cassettes. Dr B K Pramanik, BSI General Secretary, said that there may be a further distribution if more funds became available.
Dr Pramanik visited Ahmedabad to see for himself some of the damage caused by the disaster and to give support to Bible Society staff there. As yet there is no firm figure for the number of people killed but the Red Cross estimates that the death toll could rise to “at least 50,000.”
An inventory of the damage to Bible House, compiled a few days after the earthquake, lists a total of 82 horizontal and vertical cracks, including damage to columns and beams and depressions in the ground floor. Repair work “cannot wait”, according to Dr Pramanik, otherwise the winter weather will add to the damage. A preliminary estimate has put the cost of the repairs at Rs600,000 (US$13,000).
“I was shocked to know there had been extensive damage to Bible House but through God’s grace there was no loss of life of any of my colleagues in the Gujarat Auxiliary,” said Dr Pramanik.
Some staff members to whom he had spoken on the telephone shortly after the
earthquake were in a considerable state of panic. “Some of them were so
shocked that they could not talk to me but were crying,” he said.
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When the earthquake occurred at about 9am, around 50 people were attending
a three-day Christian conference in the town of Gandhiham, east of Ahmedabad.
They included local Bible Society officials, church leaders and representatives
of Operation Mobilisation.
As it struck, the Rev N G Parmar, Secretary of the BSI’s Gujarat Auxiliary and the Rt Rev V M Malaviya, Bishop of Gujarat and BSI Vice President, were on their way to the conference where they were due to launch an audio cassette of Scripture Portions and songs the following day. They arrived to find the hotel which was the conference venue had collapsed, but the people attending it had had a miraculous escape.
“At 8am the participants took their breakfast on the ground floor and went to the second floor for the conference, which was to start at 9am,” Dr Pramanik recounted. “They were about to start the conference when the earthquake rocked the city.
“In one minute the participants found that the ground floor and the first floor had gone inside the earth and the second floor had become the ground floor. They immediately rushed out of the hotel. Not a single participant [in the conference] was hurt or wounded, but all those on the ground and first floors were buried alive.”
When Mr Parmar and Bishop Malaviya returned to Ahmedabad they found that Bible House, which is not only the office of the Gujarat Auxiliary but the home of the Secretary and his family, had also been severely damaged.
As January 26 was Republic Day, the office was closed when the earthquake struck, but Mrs Parmar and the couple’s two daughters were at home when it happened and were thrown about by the force of the tremor. “They are shocked but have recovered now,” said Dr Pramanik.
A series of fresh tremors centred on the same region the following weekend forced even those people whose houses were still standing to leave them. The police asked the Auxiliary Secretary and his family to leave Bible House because of the probability of another “major earthquake”.
The earthquake was the worst to hit India for decades. With its epicentre near the city of Bhuj, it measured 7.9 on the Richter scale and was felt across the Indian sub-continent.
The Rev Fergus Macdonald, UBS General Secretary, assured Dr Pramanik of the
fellowship’s support for the distribution of Scriptures to the injured
and bereaved and for the restoration of Bible House in Ahmedabad. He said he
was “appalled” by the devastating news from Gujarat, but relieved
to learn that BSI staff were safe.
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Meanwhile, the fear of further earthquakes across India remains very real. On January 29, the city of Bangalore, where the offices of BSI are located, was among several areas of the country where tremors caused panic. One, measuring a relatively mild 4.3 on the Richter scale, rippled across the city for a few seconds at around 8am.
In an e-mail three hours later, Dr Pramanik said schools and colleges were immediately closed, high-rise buildings and offices were evacuated and, for a time, chaos ensued. “Fortunately nothing serious has happened,” he added.
David Thorne, the UBS Regional Secretary for the UBS Indo-Pacific Region, asked colleagues in the fellowship to pray for BSI staff as they attempt to help in the communities devastated by the main earthquake.
Following hard on the heels of the volcano in Mexico (see article) and the earthquake in El Salvador (see article), this latest disaster is the third in six weeks to draw a response funded by the UBS Rapid Response Reserve.
Donations towards the earthquake appeal may be sent directly to the United Bible Societies World Service Center, Rapid Response Reserve, 7th Floor, Reading Bridge House, Reading RG1 8PJ, England. (WR 358/24 - 03.01) e-128 & e-130