Thirty Seconds at Quetta

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BOOK NAME: Thirty Seconds at Quetta
AUTHOR: Robert Jackson
PUBLISHER: Evans Brothers Ltd - London
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1960
The following excerpt has been taken from Pages: 0 — 0
“Twenty five years have passed since, without warning, at three minutes past three on the morning of the last day in May, 1935, the ground under the Indian city of Quetta heaved and pulverized itself to rubble. The earthquake, said the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, caused a loss of life and destruction of property probably without parallel in the history of India.
“In the space of thirty seconds, 30,000 people died. Visiting the remains of the city almost before the dust had settled, Alex Inglis, the correspondent of The Times, found he could not trace where the streets had been. There is nothing to pick out, he wrote. No mosque rises from the ruins to show where men forgathered. The market place where men met to barter cannot be distinguished today. There is nothing but a widespread mass of grey and tawny debris, tapering off into the dun landscape beyond which in turn is a rim of forlorn and sad hills where no trees grow. Heavy though the casualties were, they would have been still more severe but for one fact. Quetta, the largest garrison town in India, contained 12,000 soldiers and, except in a few cases, the shock did not to any considerable extent penetrate to the cantonment in which they lived. Led by their dynamic commander, Major-General Henry Karslake, they performed miracles of rescue work.
MORNING OF MAY 31, 1935
“Long after the earthquake, people remembered the odd things that happened to themselves and to others, as well as the horror and terror of the morning of May 31, 1935 and the days that followed.
“There was the cow for instance that dropped dead at the feet of Lieutenant John Sleeman. The cow was startled by a small earth shock and led a stampede down the road, followed by the herdsmen. At Sleeman’s feet, the cow lay down, rolled over and died.
“Years afterwards, Mrs. Nigel Willis looked up her 1935 diary and found that across seven pages she had written no words except: ‘Frightful week.’ People remembered the young wife of a Gunner, whose beautiful black hair turned white the day after the earthquake. There was talk also of the luck of the Gurkha sentry at the Residency due for guard duty at 3 a.m. who argued with his guard commander and was still arguing when the Residency portico fell, killing the sentry who should have been relieved.
“There were odd things about insurance. Some of Quetta’s European victims had insured their household goods against earthquake damage and were paid out, but more than one officer heard that although his policy did not give him cover for earthquakes, it would have been included free if he had asked for it. For a few rupees, Lieutenant H. W. Kitson, a Sapper, luckily insured his mess a few months before he left Quetta.
“The Quetta Club received under its insurance policy the total cost of rebuilding; and the new club was designed by Harry Oddin-Taylor. The brewery was also insured. The management had written to their company at the end of the year pointing out that they had paid premiums for many years without making a claim and asking whether a reduced premium would be accepted. The insurance company declined to lower the premium but agreed instead to include for nothing a clause giving cover for earthquake damage.
“Few Europeans received compensation for lost goods and a family whose only possession after the earthquake was a dustbin lid, left the city destitute.
“A senior officer, whose house was not damaged claimed Rs 23 (£ I IOS.8d.) for glass broken in his dining room cupboard. Lieut.-Colonel Hawes of the Staff College, whose hard work and initiative were praised by all, was required to pay for five bicycles for which he had signed for messengers to use. Wing Commander Slessor was asked on whose authority he had ordered several thousands of doses of anti-tetanus serum.
“People remembered, too, the motor-cycles that would keep veering to the right. Their riders took them into the workshops for repairs where it was explained that a slight earthquake had been responsible for the “defect”.
“They remembered also the story of Captain Ralph Tobin’s promotion. He had gone into the Club’s ruins a week after the earthquake to salvage newspapers that had arrived late on May 30. One of the newspapers announced his promotion to major, an event that would normally have called for a celebration. He did not bother to mention it to anyone.
“It was impossible for anyone to forget the quantity of free drinks dispensed at the Baluch Club which was ruined; or the story of the sweetmeat seller, Shikapuri Halwai Jethananad, who it was claimed had dug himself out of the ruins of his house forty-seven days after the earthquake. The story ran round India but proved to be without foundation, unlike that of the baby who fell from the top floor of a house into a mosquito net below, and lived.
“People remembered the regimental bands which played each evening on the racecourse and recalled General Karslake’s jest when it was first suggested that the Gurkhas should play their bagpipes. ‘The Indians already think we are responsible for razing their city. What will their reaction be if we inflict further punishment on them?’ he asked solemnly.
“They remembered the dust-devils spinning upwards on the Quetta plain, the sand in the ink (until the ink ran out), and the post-free envelopes which the knowing ones said would be worth money some day (they weren’t and aren’t). They also remembered Hitler’s message of sympathy to the King.
“They recalled the story of the three officers who were walking home slightly unsteadily after a party when the earthquake happened. Not one of them dared to refer to the incident until next morning.
“There was the ill-feeling, too, over the medals. Both Karslake and Slessor suggested a medal for everybody but the Viceroy insisted that a special list be prepared. No one quarrelled with Karslake’s knighthood, the C.B.E.s awarded to Basil Bean and Skrine, Lieutenant John Cowley’s Albert Medal and the Kaisar-i-Hind medals given to Mrs. Colvill and Mrs. E. P. Macfarlane.
“In thinking of Quetta’s earthquake, women remembered that it was the Station where their hair would never curl properly and where the poshtlns (short overcoats) stank so much because the skins had not been properly cured. But they were warm.
“Sir Francis Wylie’s recollections included the poor Press he had during his administration and his view-expressed twenty-five years later-that the city should have been built elsewhere and on a grander scale.
“Memories still flood back after a quarter of a century whenever survivors meet. But nobody in Quetta on the evening of the earthquake thought of the words of W. D. West, Assistant Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India, after he had investigated the previous earthquake which shook Quetta in 1931. ‘At present the majority of buildings in Quetta are about as unsoundly built from an earthquake point of view, as it is possible for them to be,’ he wrote. ‘It is absolutely essential to discard the use of mud mortar in buildings of more than one storey and it would be advisable to do likewise in all buildings, especially those which from time to time house a large number of people, such as halls, cinemas, clubs and so on.’
“Prophetic and sad words which, if they had been heeded, might well have saved 30,000 people in Quetta from a sudden and horrible death.
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