‘Buried alive for 3 hours, now life has come to a standstill’
LATUR : Jayashri Nimburge was a 16-year-old Class 10 student when a devastating earthquake struck Killari village on September 30, 1993. Nimburge was buried under the rubble for more than three hours before she was rescued. She was taken to a hospital in Latur where she found the earthquake had left her paralysed below the waist.
Twenty-five years on, Jayashri, 41, feels that the earthquake made her life come to a standstill while the entire world moved on.
Killari was the epicentre of the earthquake, measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale and which devastated the districts of Latur and Osmanabad, killing close to 8,000 people.
“I feel sad that my life has not moved a step forward in the past 25 years. When I see my childhood friends all settled with children and a family, I realise that my life has come to a standstill. I had dreams of completing my education, a good job, marriage and having children, but the earthquake crushed everything,” said a wheelchair-bound Jayashri.
She was hospitalised for more than one-and-a-half years for treatment on her spinal injuries. The treatment could help her sit on her own, but she could not feel below her waist. She completed her Class 12 after returning home from the hospital. Her brother, his wife and two children died in the earthquake. Jayashri had returned home from her aunt’s house just two days before the earthquake.
Jayashri now lives with her two brothers and mother at a resettled village, with her own endeavour to not become dependent on them. She was given a copier by the government after the earthquake. She set up a photocopy stall in the premises of a cooperative sugar factory where her brother worked. She has now been served a notice to vacate the premises as the sugar factory has wound up business.
“I submitted several applications to the government for the stall, but the pleas had no response at all. I don’t know what will happen to us if the stall is removed. Both my brothers are unemployed and there is no breadwinner in the house,” she said.
About 55km from Killari, 80-year-old Motiram Gumare and his 71-year-old wife, Shantabai, in Naichakur village, find it difficult to make both ends meet.
She lost her 8-year old granddaughter Radhabai in the earthquake. Shantabai too sustained injuries. She was not compensated for her injuries nor her granddaughter’s death. “Panchnamas were done by the authorities, but help never came our way. We had to sell all our 5 acres for the marriages of our daughters. Had we got compensation, it would have helped us save our land. Today, I have no money even to buy a surgical belt for my spinal injury,” said Shantabai, as hearing-impaired Motiram looked on helplessly.