EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS TELL THEIR STORY/COPING WITH THE AFTERMATH

"WE HAVE BEEN WALKING SINCE MORNING, WE ARE FLEEING FOR OUR LIVES.  THERE IS NO DRINKING WATER, NO FOOD. ALL THE HOUSES ARE DESTROYED." -HARJIVAN, SURVIVOR OF 7.9 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE IN INDIA.

EXPERIENCING the fury of an earthquake is terrifying.  "There were books flying all around me from an eight-foot-high wooden wardrobe beside my bed," recalls a survivor of a 1999 quake in Taiwan. 'A newly purchased motorcycle helmet found its way off the top of my wardrobe and landed beside my head on my bed. Ironically,' she adds, 'it could have killed me.'

Beyond Survival

Living through an earthquake is frightening, but surviving one is just the beginning. In the  hours following the event, relief workers courageously strive to locate and treat those who are injured.  Often, they do so under the threat of aftershocks."  We have to be extremely careful," said one man who contemplated digging through a mountain of dirt that had buried a neighborhood after a recent quake in El Salvador."  If suddenly the ground moves again, the rest of the hill could go." 

Sometimes individuals demonstrate extraordinary self-sacrifice in reaching out to victims.   For example, when a massive earthquake occurred in India early in 2001, Manu, an elderly man who now lives in the United States, returned to his homeland.  "I must go," he reasoned,  "not just to help my family, but everyone who is suffering."  Manu found conditions to be deplorable in the regions he visited.  Nevertheless, he noted:   "The courage people showed  is astounding."  Wrote one journalist:  "I don't know anyone living around me who did not give whatever he or she could spare -a day's, a week's or a month's  salary, a portion of their savings or whatever they could do without to help."

Of course, it is one thing to clear out the rubble and treat the injured; it is quite another to restore a sense of normalcy to lives that have been turned upside down by a few moments of terror. Consider Delores, a woman who lost her home in the quake in El Salvador.  "This is worse than the war," she says. "At least then we had a roof. 

As mentioned in our opening article, sometimes there is a great need not only for material aid but also but emotional support.   For example, when an earthquake paralyzed the city of Armenia in Western Colombia early in 1999, more than a thousand lost their lives, and many more were left in a state of shock and despair. Said psychiatrist Roberto Estefan, whose own apartment building was destroyed in the disaster: "Wherever you go, people are asking for help. I go out for a hamburger, and most of the people who say hello seize the  moment to tell me about their insomnia and their sadness."

As Dr. Estefan well  knows, the emotional aftershocks of an earthquake can be devastating.  One woman who volunteered to  help construct a relief camp noted that some people who have jobs don't bother to go to work because they believe that they will die soon. 

Next time: EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS TELL THEIR STORY - COPING WITH THE AFTERMATH/Providing Hope Amid Despair

From the Awake! magazine