Friday January 26 6:29 AM ET
Earthquake Rocks India; Death Toll Tops 500

By Tushar Trivedi

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake rocked western India Friday, killing more than 500 people, trapping many others under rubble and casting a pall over the country's Republic Day celebrations.

Buildings in Ahmedabad, the dusty main city in the western state of Gujarat, collapsed like packs of cards, killing or trapping families who were at home celebrating the public holiday.

The quake -- measured at 7.9 on the Richter scale by the U.S. Geological Survey -- was the region's most intense in half a century, the Indian Meteorological Department said.

The Press Trust of India (PTI), quoting officials, put the death toll at over 500 in Gujarat, India's second-most industrialized state, but said that the number was likely to rise with many people still trapped under rubble.

Many families were spending the holiday at home when the quake struck, bringing down older buildings in the coastal state and sending out tremors that could be felt around the country and
beyond.

In neighboring Pakistan, officials and rescue workers said that the quake had killed at least four people there. Residents of Ahmedabad, Gujarat's commercial capital with a population of around five million, said the tremors lasted for about 45 seconds from 8:46 a.m. (10:16 p.m. EST Thursday) and sent people scurrying from their homes.

``It was like being on a swing. Nobody could get out for those 20 or 30 seconds,'' said Vinay Kumar, who works for Gujarat Petroleum Corp. there. ``The building shook so much that it developed cracks.''

Television pictures showed mangled piles of masonry and twisted metal and the bloodied body of a small child. Elsewhere, a foot protruded from a heap of rubble.

Some Ahmedabad phone links and power lines went down.

Aftershocks Likely

It was the world's second major quake of the year. On January 13, a quake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale killed at least 700 people in El Salvador and made 10 percent of that country's population homeless.

A 1999 quake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale killed more than 2,400 people in Taiwan.

The latest quake hit as India was celebrating Republic Day, which marks its transition to a republic in 1950.

PTI said that the coastal town of Bhuj, where a five-story building collapsed killing 150 people, was the worst-hit. PTI put the Ahmedabad toll at at least 200.

Ahmedabad is home to one of India's largest gold markets and is a leading oilseed trading center. It also produces textiles and chemicals.

Nights are cool but not very chilly in Gujarat at this time of year.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee called an emergency federal cabinet meeting to discuss the quake. Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani was due to travel to Ahmedabad.

Earthquakes with intensity of 6-7 on the Richter scale can cause severe damage in populated areas. The last time that Gujarat, which is prone to tremors of up to seven on the Richter scale, suffered a quake of such intensity was in 1819. The Meteorological Department said the epicenter of Friday's earthquake was in an area 13 miles northeast of Bhuj in the marshy and sparsely populated Rann of Kutch, which lies on the border with Pakistan.

``We expect unimaginable damage in the epicenter,'' S.K. Srivastav, additional director general of meteorology told Reuters in New Delhi.

``All buildings, including strong buildings, will suffer damage in the epicenter area and all weak buildings will most likely collapse.''

He told BBC television later that aftershocks could continue. ``There are no set rules,'' he said. ``It can continue for a week.''

Officials appealed to people not to remain in damaged buildings. They said heavy damage was likely within a 125-mile radius of the epicenter.

Residents in the neighboring Pakistani cities of Karachi in the southwest and Peshawar in the northwest also said they had felt strong tremors Friday.

The deaths were in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh -- two in the city of Hyderabad and two in the town of Badin.

The quake was felt from Kathmandu in Nepal to Madras in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The last major earthquake to hit India was in March 1999. Measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, the quake and its aftershocks killed 100 people and injured 300 in the Himalayan foothills and was felt across many parts of northern India, western Nepal and southern China.

A 1950 quake in the Indo-China border area measured 8.6 on the Richter scale. It killed hundreds of people.

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