Survivors of the Nepal earthquake who reached the city on Sunday heaved a sigh of relief and recounted with horror their travails in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Santosh Naik, a techie, and his family of five were the first to return to Bengaluru on Sunday morning from Nepal. Mr. Naik had accompanied his sister Shobha and her family to Kathmandu.
“The first few minutes [after the quake struck on Saturday] were total chaos as I was with my niece and saw buildings crumble. We didn’t know what to do. It’s a miracle that we returned safely… thanks to the Indian Air Force,” he said.
Y.S. Venugopal (55), a city-based software engineer who was in Kathmandu market area when the quake struck, said the first thing he observed was hundreds of pigeons on the road suddenly flying away making a huge noise. “Before we realised, the ground started shaking violently.” He returned to New Delhi along with his wife and nine others who were on a pilgrimage to Nepal.
Another group of pilgrims from the city, which was holed up in the Pashupatinath temple during the earthquake and stayed safe, likened it to a spiritual experience. Four women from Gandhi Bazaar here — Saroja Rao, S. Vatsala, Vijayalakshmi and Geeta Subramaniyam — have returned to the city. “We were inside the Pashupatinath temple when the quake struck, and fortunately the temple was not damaged. The Kannada priests in the temple assured us that the temple was not damaged even during the 1934 earthquake and we would be safe. We consider this to be a blessing,” said Ms. Rao.