Maharashtra, India, Earthquake of September 30, 1993
September 30th 1993, Maharashtra State (West of India) was violently shaken by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake. The earthquakes epicentre was 18.1ºN 76.5ºE and affected most of India. On this Thursday morning, at around 3:56am local time, the citzens of the of India peacefully slept until they felt the earth begin to tremble beneath them. The quake left a major amount of statistics behind that the citizens of india still remember today. There were: - 7,928 people killed - 16,000 people injured - 15, 854 livestock killed - 52 villages raised to ground, 27,000 houses all amenities and infrastructure damaged. - 30,000 houses collapsed.
The rehabilitation after the earthquake included: - The life in the affected villages were paralysed - Donor agencies and social organisations carried out extensive rescue and relief operations. - The Government and social organisations contributed their best to bring life to normal. First aid, food, water, clothing, medical aid were timely provided.
Many people were rescued alive by the armed forces. Over 62 villages in the Latur and Osmanabad districts of Maharashtra took the burnt of the disaster. The walls of the village huts and other buildings are made of random rock masonry, and are not tied together. The construction of these houses is of the poorest in lateral load resistance. Even a slight improvement in the quality of construction can protect these huts from totally collapsing. The strong shaken region, however, did have a few fully engineered structures- mainly places such as factories and agro-business related structures, and a large number of these did indeed survive the heavy earthquake.