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This paper describes the findings of a tour of heritage buildings in the Indian state of Gujarat which were affected by the Bhuj earthquake of 26th January 2001. After a general introduction to the earthquake and its effects, a description is given of the damage suffered by princely palaces and religious buildings in Bhuj, JamNagar, Wankaner, Morbi, Maliya, Halvad, Dranghedra and Ahmadabad. 40 photos of the damage are included. The paper closes with conclusions and recommendations concerning the repair and maintenance of heritage buildings in Gujarat, and some observations on how the seismic response of massive masonry structures differs from that of engineered structures in reinforced concrete or steel. A modified version of this paper will be published in the EEFIT general report on the Bhuj earthquake.

Gujarat has a rich heritage of buildings built by the princely rulers of the area over the last 500 years. Some of these buildings are of international importance. Many were seriously damaged during the January 2001 earthquake. The Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) has estimated that of 250 heritage buildings inspected in Kachchh and Rajkot, about 40% either collapsed or were seriously damaged, while only 10% remained undamaged.

Some of the heritage buildings in Bhuj, JamNagar, Wankaner, Morbi, Maliya, Halvad, Dranghedra and Ahmadabad were inspected by Rabindra Vasavada, an architect based in Ahmadabad specialising in conservation and Edmund Booth, a civil engineer based in London specialising in seismic engineering. The inspection was carried out on behalf of the Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), during the period 25th March to 2nd April 2001.

Earthquakes are natural phenomena which are yet to be fully understood. Scientific knowledge about them exists, but their time of occurrence, location and magnitude are difficult to forecast. For this reason, earthquakes are dreaded by human beings and their effects are only to be borne as they happen; depending on their magnitude and duration, there is damage to life and property wherever they strike.

The recent earthquake in western India was one such rare occurrence which has taken the people all over unawares and the damage it has caused in varying degrees has been devastating the life of people in this region. After the calamity, there has been an increased awareness about the phenomenon and there is a general demand for safeguards against any such future occurrences so that the damage to human life and property is minimized. Since there was no major occurrence of such an earthquake in the last century in this region, people in general have got a shock of their lifetime and since it has not previously been experienced for several generations, there was a complete lack of preparedness on the part of the people at large, including the authorities and public welfare institutions.

The regional building techniques have two distinct characteristics. Firstly, there is a large heritage of building methods and appropriation of shelters which is patronized by the people themselves out of their instinctive traditional wisdom and know-how. These types of shelter building practices are still confined to the tribal cultures in the agrarian regions of Saurashtra and Katchchh. These shelter forms, which were a product of the ecology of the area, sustained themselves in the event of such earthquakes and are more or less unaffected. This was because of the form of the shelter and also the materials and techniques with which these were put together. There is always some sort of instinctive ability in people who live close to nature to understand the forces of nature and also develop means in congruity to it so that they exist in a harmonious coexistence. The second type were structures built in villages and urban areas by masons and builders for an occupant which were involving quasi-modern techniques with easily available materials and hybrid techniques. These buildings were of various types and using different structural possibilities offered by contemporary materials. In the villages there was also an element of cheaper construction using waste stones and materials which were not particularly good for building purposes. In the case of masonry construction, it was also a practice to use soil as a binding material and in many cases the soil used was of a very inferior quality. All these factors compounded the effects of the tremor and the material used in masonry just could not resist any lateral pressures for which it had no security. This amounted to large scale collapse of houses in the villages and also to some extent in the towns in the Katchchh region.

Quality of construction, choice of the form of buildings and also the magnitude of the tremor all accounted for the misery suffered by the people in general. The building form has in the first place to be seen as a balanced form which if laterally shaken should be able to retain its equilibrium in all the directions as the tremors are multi directional. For this reason, in addition to designing a balanced form, it is important to provide inbuilt flexibility to the corners, planes and the upper parts of the ztructures. Normally the upper parts of the structures are lighter than the lower parts and should be strengthened and made flexible to absorb the shocks. In addition, it should be a practice to secure the overall form of the building for planar movements. This is necessary parallel to the plane and also along the plane. This is done by introducing keying and lapping of horizontal layers of masonry by longer pieces of stones, continuous bands and plates.

As far as possible it is useful to adopt building materials which are local and natural, used in form of units for construction. The roofs and floors also should be such that the entire construction is possible as an assembly of parts. These materials are more friendly and adaptable for repairs, maintenance and most of all non damaging to human life in the event of failures. In the villages where almost all the houses simply turned into heaps of material debris, the loss of human life was almost none. In contrast to this wherever in the towns and cities, modem industrial materials were used, the chunks of poured concrete crushed many people even in one single building, and it was humanly impossible to remove debris as even lifting debris to salvage injured people required mechanical handling of huge chunks of building elements.

Every calamity is a tragedy for society. The scars of misery continue to hound people for a long time. The quake in this region has been a tragedy of a natural character. When examining the fragments and ruins of the Indus Valley Civilization from this region, archaeologists have always wondered about the missing links in the evolutionary record and many times have come across queer specimens of evidences which suggest mutilated skeletons with fractured parts and accidental postures buried under the layers of strata. Could this also suggest that these regions have been relatively younger in the earth's evolutionary process and are still in the process of formations? The Harappan civilization also might have experienced their share of such human misery that we are experiencing today after centuries. In that sense such phenomena are cyclic and we in the present times are experiencing the fate of our times in this process of natural evolution. But with the present level of scientific achievements and know-how perhaps are in a better shape (although very relative to say that as each time has its own level of excellence) to chart our future course to safeguard ourselves from recurrences of such a situation. In that sense it is a time for us to apply all the available knowledge and make our environment safer by introducing methods and scientific know-how in building our new environment in our towns and cities and villages. But it is important to remember that to exist in nature, we must integrate ourselves in all ways within the nature that surrounds us and develop a balanced insert which as integrated entity would remain one with the nature and not collapse as an imposed strata. Also remember that the analogue of trees is significant for correct integration, as no tree ever was uprooted or even fell due to these upheavals of the earth's crust! In most cases it was lack of integration which was the cause of the failure and in that is our lesson to learn for any future, safeguarding strategies for rehabilitation of whatever is damaged and destroyed.