Gujarat's astonishing rise from rubble of 2001 quake (BBC) {as opposed to ...}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Emily Buchanan and Bhasker Solanki
BBC News, Kutch

Ten years on from the huge earthquake that razed swathes of India's western state of Gujarat, the BBC finds the place transformed from a pile of rubble in a neglected backwater into an economic powerhouse. How?

Kutch is a remote region in the arid borderlands of north-west India. For centuries life was brutally tough - rains often failed, there were few jobs and the enterprising would emigrate.

Then in January 2001 a magnitude seven earthquake struck, devastating a huge area, flattening cities including the district capital, Bhuj, and wrecking over 8,000 villages. Twenty thousand people were killed and more than a million others made homeless.

Those who witnessed the devastation at the time must have thought this would set back development by decades.

There was an outpouring of sympathy from around the world, much of it from Gujaratis living abroad. Some $130m (£80m) of aid poured in.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12309791




Meh, that's nothing. Look at how well we rebuilt New Orleans! :sarcasm:

[Hannah Bell]

1. and haiti! clinton & bush have that international rebuilding fund, you know.

[Demeter]

2. Building on the site of a Magnitude 7 Seems Stupid to Me