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Quake fear keeps Punjab outdoors
From Tribune Reporters

JALANDHAR, Jan 29 — Fear of an impending earthquake, generated by rumour mills, pushed residents of a number of Punjab cities and towns out of their homes and forced them to stay outdoors and brave the chilly weather in the wee hours of today.

It was around 1 a.m. that people of various cities and townships started exchanging “information” (the source of which was neither known nor did anybody try to ascertain it) in the shape of phone calls, and warning their near and dear ones against the possibility of an earthquake hitting the state between 3 and 4 a.m.

As the word spread, chaos prevailed everywhere with people in all major cities and towns, including Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Bathinda, coming out of their homes and converging on roads in groups, but not before ringing up and leaving a “word of caution” for their relatives and advising them to fan out in the open as soon as possible to “save themselves from the tremors. And soon, the entire state was virtually on the road and in open spaces, till 7.30 a.m”.

Around 3 am, The Tribune sub-office here started receiving frantic calls from local residents and even anxious people of far-flung areas like Bathinda, Mansa, Tappa, Phagwara and Hoshiarpur. Maintaining that they were in open spaces, people wanted to know the “truth” behind the “news” they had received from some of their relatives and friends. ‘‘Rush outside immediately, it is a quake..... hurry up”, was the first phone call received by this correspondent. Most of the people who called up attributed the news to a private TV channel, which, according to them, had cautioned the people to remain alert against tremors, likely to rock the state anytime between 3 and 4 a.m. But when this “crucial” hour passed off peacefully, rumours got revised, now saying that the “earthquake time” was around 6 a.m.

Woken up by the phone calls, when this correspondent toured the city and nearby townships in the wee hours he was shocked to see groups of people in the open with fear writ large on their faces. The younger lot started doing the rounds of the city on their two-wheelers and by walking through lanes in small groups. Groups of people who had rushed outdoors, even taking their woollens, were seen sitting around bonfires and indulging in hush-hush talk about quakes, their origin and the never-before devastation caused in Gujarat.

“We got a call from one of our relatives in Rajasthan who said the quake will be there around 2.50 a.m. We just rushed out of our home after taking our two-month-old child who was sleeping. My wife even forgot to get her slippers and how she dreads entering the house,” said Ram Asra of Basti Nau.

Similarly, Mr Shiv Sharma of Lakshmipura locality said he was shocked when one of his friends rang him up to advise him that he should get up at the earliest and rush towards the nearest open space with all valuables and jewellery. He followed the advice, only to find hundreds of people outside. Mr Anurag Sood of Hoshiarpur, too, was shocked after being “informed” of the impending quake by one of his friends, based at Muktsar.

BATHINDA: The rumour of an impending earthquake, which spread like wild fire in the entire state on Sunday night, forced the residents to spend a sleepless night under the open sky in biting cold.

According to information gathered by this correspondent, the residents of Bathinda and surrounding areas came out on the streets when they heard the rumour that an earthquake would hit Punjab any time. Even patients, who were undergoing treatment in some clinics and were unable to move about, came in the open.

The people got frightened when announcements in connection with the earthquake were made from the public address systems of various religious places in this city and surrounding villages. Some of the families even started shifting their valuables to safer places.

Dr Jatinder Kumar Jain, SSP, said that when the police authorities came to know about the rumour of an impending earthquake, immediately police personnel were pressed into service to instil confidence in the people and urge them to remain beware of rumours.

The police also used the public address system of religious places to tell the people not to believe in the rumour.

Meanwhile, Mr Chiranji Lal Garg, Minister for Science and Technology, dispelled the earthquake rumour.

Mr Garg, who is an MLA from this area, visited all areas of the city early in the morning and assured the people that the district administration was fully prepared to meet any eventuality.

Mr Garg, who is the president of the local M.S.D. School, said that the school’s management committee has sent a cheque for Rs 1 lakh to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund.

AMRITSAR: Rumour-mongers had a field day on Monday when residents came out into the open in hordes in Goal Bagh, Company Garden, Parkas and the Sithla Mandir areas on hearing rumours of an impending quake.

The people carried their jewellery, bank and land documents along.

Interestingly, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, too, ‘admitted’ to the quake rumour at a press meeting on Monday.

KAPURTHALA: Panic spread among residents of the town in the early hours of Monday when they heard announcements from speakers in gurdwaras and temples, asking them to come out from their houses since an earthquake was expected from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. People came out of their houses in a huff and returned indoors only around 6.30 a.m. when they heard announcements that the danger of an earthquake had passed.

NABHA: Residents of this town remained out of their houses in the wee hours as a rumour spread that an earthquake would hit the region between 5.01 a.m. and 5.03 a.m.

Reports of panic gripping residents due to rumours of an impending quake were also received from Hoshiarpur and Malerkotla.

Inputs by Varinder Singh, Chander Parkash, Pushpesh Kumar, Rashmi Talwar and K.S. Ahluwalia.

Detector lies idle in Ajmer
From Amarjit Thind
Tribune News Service

SRIGANGANAGAR, Jan 29 — A state-of-the-art seismic activity detection system installed at Ajmer in Rajasthan failed to deliver the goods when it could not detect the quake in Bhuj and its adjoining areas on January 26.

The computerised Global Seismological Network (GSN) was procured from the USA at a cost of Rs 1 crore a couple of years ago but has been on the blink for the past one year.

Sources revealed the Department of Science and Technology in view of the previous tragedies in the most earthquake-prone regions of the country had decided to procure the GSN and install it in Ajmer since the city is considered to be the best geographical location to detect any seismic activity in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana Delhi and Himachal Pradesh.

The GSN is so powerful that it can even detect any activity in Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Japan and China. There are only 10 such machines which have been installed in other active regions, costing the country crores of rupees.

The machine has been lying idle for the past one year due to some technical snag. The laboratory authorities reportedly informed the department to get the fault rectified but no response had been received so far, the sources pointed out. It is ironic that the staff at the laboratory only came to know about the quake after a local newspaper called up to inquire about the magnitude of the quake.