The Political Biography of an Earthquake: Aftermath and Amnesia in Gujarat, India

摘要

On India's Republic Day in January 2001, a magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck the western part of the state of Gujarat. It killed an estimated 14,000 people, most of them in the coastal region of Kutch, next to the border with Pakistan. It totally destroyed 178 villages, more than 70 per cent of 165 other villages and damaged four major towns-Bhuj, Bhachau, Anjar and Rapar-seriously enough for emergency measures to be imposed on them. In Bhuj, there was an oil leak, at Kandla port highly toxic chemicals leaked into the air, while coal dust and fluorspar spilled into the intertidal waters at Navlakhi. Nine months later, partly as a result of the state government's incompetence in dealing with reconstruction after the earthquake, the chief minister resigned, and was succeeded by an unelected politician also from the Bharatiya Janata Party but hitherto virtually unknown, named Narendra Modi.