I was working in the dark in a yard awash with blood while one doctor tried to treat hundreds of people with terrible injuries. Many died of shock in front of us."It's very difficult here for someone like me. Some people refused first aid because I was a stranger, while others insisted that if I was from Britain I must be a doctor, and couldn't understand that I wasn't qualified to treat them. It was the same later when I tried to explain about tectonic plates. People wouldn't listen - they insisted the earthquake happened because of the evil they had done."The quake destroyed the main jail in Bhuj, freeing dozens of criminals. Parties of looters up to 40 strong had been roaming the countryside, breaking into houses even when the occupants were inside, and the people of Kera had organised themselves into a watch.
Kal and her cousins were asleep in mid-afternoon because they had been on guard all night. "The quake has shifted many walls and doors out of true, so it's impossible to lock up the houses securely," she said. "As soon as people try to move back inside there's another strong tremor, and they rush out again."Pointing out the damage to the grandest house in Kera, built by someone who had won money on the UK lottery, she went on: "People are coming through all the time, asking for shelter, but there's nowhere for them to stay They have to move on. But when they come and say they've had nothing to eat for two days, you have to help."Cracks have opened up in human society as wide as those in the buildings. "Some people go round the streets chanting God's name all day, to counteract the evil they say is in this place," said Kal "Others have used kerosene to set themselves on fire.
The tension is incredible."In her sweatshirt and trainers, Kal stood out from her sari-clad cousins. "My father is coming tomorrow, and I will go home with him," she said, "but the fact that I didn't run away immediately has made me a bit more accepted here. This experience has definitely made me think about what I'm going to do with my life Maybe I won't become a solicitor after all I might decide to do something more practical.". We work with sniffer dogs and fibre-optic cameras to find people trapped under collapsed buildings," said Russ, who is from Llandudno. "The window of opportunity for finding survivors is slowly closing, but the weather might help to keep people alive - it's dry and neither too hot nor too cold. We work with sniffer dogs and fibre-optic cameras to find people trapped under collapsed buildings," said Russ, who is from Llandudno.
"The window of opportunity for finding survivors is slowly closing, but the weather might help to keep people alive - it's dry and neither too hot nor too cold. The dogs are the centre of the operation - if any scent comes up, they will detect it, but we could not afford to bring more than one over here. Thanks to Britain's regulations, it costs us £2,600 a time to quarantine them for six months when we get back, and we are a small charity. The French team over there don't have the same problems, so they've got four dogs with them.We set up here only last night, taking over from another British rescue organisation. The Indians immediately asked us to send the dog to Gandhidham, one of the worst-hit towns, and two handlers went with it. The rest of us have just been asked to go to Bachau, which we saw on the way here: there's only one house standing in the whole place. There are eight of us here, plus another 16 backing up at home.We lost a whole day of searching time in Ahmedabad, where we first arrived, because of administrative delays Here in Bhuj they're much more switched-on. They are very keen to use the foreign teams, and were disappointed that several have already left.