Nightmare in New Zealand

Santacruz woman, who was stuck with her husband on 23rd floor of this hotel when the earthquake hit Christchurch, recalls the trauma

When Santacruz husband-wife couple Rashmi and Medha Bhatia, both in their sixties, flew to Christchurch (New Zealand) recently, it was for a leisure and pleasure trip.


An emotional Medha Bhatia recounts her story at her office in Fort

That holiday turned to horror as the Mumbai residents were trapped for nearly nine hours in their hotel room as the earthquake that devastated the NZ city struck.

Work
Says Medha who has been back in Mumbai since the weekend but is still traumatised, "We are living evidence that miracles do happen." On Tuesday, February 22, all seemed deceptively calm as the Bhatias landed in Christchurch and were then transferred to their hotel, The Grand Chancellor by 12.15 pm. Says Medha who is back at work in her firm, Tulsidas Khimji Holidays in Fort, "We arrived at the hotel and were relaxing for a while in room 2302 on the 23rd floor.u00a0 We thought we would rest a bit, as it was such a long flight (we flew in via Singapore)."

Shock
As the Bhatias were in the room at around 12.50 pm, the first tremor struck. Says Medha, "We got such a shock. The building shook and a glass frame, which was above the bed, fell with a resounding crash. Then, everything happened so fast. The cupboard in the room broke into pieces, a chest of drawers split. The television was upside down. Before I could register what was happening, the bathroom itself had disintegrated and water poured into our room. A siren started wailing through the hotel. My husband said: 'this is an earthquake, let's vacate'."

Tremors
Unfortunately though, the Bhatias were trapped. The room door had moved from its correct alignment and locked by itself. Electricity was gone and phone lines off. Says Medha, "We were on the 23rd floor of this 26-storey hotel. Phones were out, there was no electricity and we could not open the door, which was shut tight. The room was shaking as tremors followed in rapid succession, the bed had moved away from its original position.''

Sons
The Bhatias miraculously got through their sons Jay and Purav Bhatia in Mumbai via their mobile phone. Says Medha, "I called Mumbai, it must have been 5 am. I tried to sound calm, telling Jay, we have reached Christchurch. I then told him, there has been a tremendous earthquake. At once he asked about us and then said, don't panic, don't worry ufffd I told him we are trapped in the room."u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0

Surreal
Their sons started contacting authorities in New Zealand and got things moving from India, Jay says, "We started moving. First of all, I called Pradeep Madhavji, former honorary consul general of New Zealand; he got me in touch with other people. We were trying all avenues, we had to." Meanwhile, the Bhatias saw death and destruction unfolding from their vantage point. Says Medha, "We saw the building next to ours had collapsed. We saw flames shooting up. Helicopters were hovering above showering water. There were fire engines below. We were trying to get help. Hitting the windows, waving our arms hoping somebody would see us. We were trying so hard."u00a0u00a0u00a0

Desperate
Trapped in an increasingly desperate situation, Medha says, "We saw death up close, we were praying, saying the Hanuman Chalissa. I said to myself, God has brought us here to Christchurch. Now it is His will. Either he will take usu00a0 or help us get out of here. I believe in submission to the will of God. We were waiting for death with open eyes. And yet, we were strong, I do not know from where we got this strength."

Divine
The Divine was listening and so were the NZ authorities. From the 23rd floor, Medha says, "Weu00a0 could see the police had written in big, bold letters on the road: Be calm. Help is coming." Help though evaded them for hours afterwards. It was agonising. While their mobile phones trilled from calls from various people, "there were so many calls," says Medha, "we could see from our window some people were being rescued from the hotel by a crane to which a basket was tied. We were waving our hands (the window was sealed) and banging on the windows. We saw two-three helicopters fly by. Once when I looked down, I saw an empty street. I thought to myself in despair all help is gone, there is nobody there."u00a0 Callers on their mobiles though, were constantly reassuring them with words like: we know you are there, hope you are okay, don't panic, help is coming.

Smash
"Suddenly," says Medha, "I got a call on the mobile (one mobile was operational, the other had died out) with a cop saying: Mrs. Bhatia can you break the window? My husband, who is an electronic engineer, managed to smash the window. It was already quite dark; it had started raining and was very windy. We then took pillow cases (which were white) and tied them to the window. They started fluttering white against the dark, telling people we are here."

Door
It had already been seven hours since the Bhatias were locked in the room. Once again, choppers flew tantalisingly near, then they were gone, the blades slicing to shreds the few slivers of optimism the Bhatias had. Soon though, there was a crash. Four NZ fire personnel had broken the door to their room. It was the most welcome sound the Bhatias had heard in their lives. Says Medha, "I don't know how they broke it, but they made a kind of opening through the door and pulled us out. Weu00a0 got down 23 floors with the help of the personnel shining torches. As we were getting down, there were places where the stairs had caved in, huge gaping holes. I think we were climbing down for more than 30 minutes."



Escape
They came down to a car park, says Medha, "which was a winding one, the kind you see in malls, the firefighters were shouting, run run, the building is going to collapse. We started running going quite giddy by running round and round.u00a0 Finally, somehow we were on the main road. Then, a couple of cops were comforting us and we were in tears. A lady cop jumped through a window of a nearby structure and brought us bottles of water. We were out. We had escaped only with some money and our passports which we took with us."

Flight
The Bhatias were then driven to some place Medha says was like "a refugee camp. There were tents and people were crying, hysterical. We saw people with broken and missing limbs. There were pools of blood everywhere."

Somebody in authority though said, "do not bring them here, they are not injured," says Medha and we, "were driven to another place."

Finally, through some contacts, they were taken to a golf resort miles out of Christchurch and put up there. Their friends who were also in New Zealand on a holiday met up with them outside Christchurch. Everybody re-united, and soon they were on a flight back to Mumbai. Even at Auckland airport, the air was thick with fear, desperation and rumours. Says Medha, "On the flight back, I met so many devastated people. There was a boy from Delhi. H e had lost his house and car in the earthquake. He told us I do not know if I will go back. There were groups of people who said they don't know what they would go back to."

Believe
After a long flight, Medha says, "We landed in Mumbai on Thursday night (Friday morning). It was an emotional re-union with the family and I thought to myself, this is my India, this is my country, I never want to leave it again, I never want to travel," says Medha, struggling to hold back her tears.

As relatives and friends poured into their home over the weekend, to inquire about their health and express happiness that they are back,u00a0 Medha says, "We still are shocked at the wonder of it all, we escaped without a scratch.

My staff welcomed me back with a statue of Ganpati as I came in to work. I thought to myself, it is because of Him that I have been saved. My message to people who are going through their own personal earthquakes is: believe in Him. He is there; somewhere there is a higher power guiding us. Do not be doubtful, do not ask for evidence of His existence, he is there. Why do we skeptics keep asking for proof?"u00a0u00a0

Help
Jay and Purav say they have so many people to thank from the Indian High Commission, NZu00a0 authorities to
friends and acquaintances, simply everybody who came together to help in every way they could.

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter helped them hugely and even friends says Purav, "who I had not met since my school days offered help after learning about my parents status on Facebook."

Yesterday, New Zealand was steeped in grief as a two-minute silence was held in memory of those swallowed up by the seismic catastrophe. Church bells tolled and jackhammers ground to a halt, as workers sifting through the rubble put down their tools for 120 seconds in memory of the dead.

Many miles away, in a Mumbai office Medha Bhatia too relived her memories. The earthquake though devastatingu00a0 brought the always-devout Medha closer to celestial truths. Her faith in God is stronger than ever now, a belief that no earthquake however high on the Richter scale can ever destroy.

Not just a number in New Zealand

Pradeep Madhavji, former honorary consul general of New Zealand says, "I firmly believe that anybody who goes to New Zealand, does go to Christchurch. It is such a beautiful place and of course, the Old Cathedral building now destroyed in the earthquake was a magnificent structure.

It had stunning architecture and crevices in which history whispered. Christchurch is a fairly big town but it has a very British countryside feel to it. I remember getting around by bus and then by the quaint tram that ran through it.

I got the impression that the entire town was like a close-knit community, where one is not just a number. In today's fast-paced world, when one leaves an official post, the curtains usually fall on a relationship. Not so with New Zealand.

I gave up the consul general post eight months ago. Yet, I wrote a short email to my former colleagues in the High Commission after this earthquake struck and I, at once, got a very nice email reply. I can only wish them the best for the rebuilding process."

Still teetering amidst fierce debate

The Australian newspaper, carried a report about the Hotel Grand Chancellor. Excerpts from that report say: "The Hotel Grand Chancellor, a 26-storey tower that looms large over the fate of downtown Christchurch, has been variously described as condemned, teetering and on the brink of collapse.

Yet some engineers working on the hotel stricken by last Tuesday's earthquake believe it may be better to rebuild it than tear it down.

The news will come as a shock to most Christchurch residents, who need merely look at the distant, slumped form of the hotel tower within the no-go zone to know their city's tallest building must be razed.

It was also a surprise to the building's Sydney-born owner, Grand Central Group Australia and New Zealand general manager Frank Delli Cicchi, who said yesterday the "overwhelming consensus" as recently as Saturday was the badly damaged building would need to be demolished.

"Most of the engineers from the Earthquake Commission and Civil Defence are of the opinion it will have to come down," he said.

A counter view, held by seismic engineering experts working on behalf of the City of Christchurch, is that the super-structure of the 1987 hotel is sound and there is no safe way of bringing a mountain of steel, glass and concrete violently to earth.

While the city ponders this dilemma, search-and-rescue teams are preparing to access the building for the first time since last Tuesday to scour the hotel for unaccounted guests.

The hotel was booked to capacity the previous night, with 270 guests registered. Delli Cicchi said all hotel staff had survived and the quake struck at a time when most guests would have been out enjoying a sunny day.

A detailed briefing prepared by the Critical Building Group, the city council agency responsible for assessing earthquake-damaged buildings, identifies the southeast corner as the point in the hotel's structure that gave way during the quake.

It also notes that support columns on the 12th floor of the building collapsed. This probably occurred as the hotel tower slumped to the east -- crowding into the space above a laneway -- to compensate for its abrupt loss of support at the base.

If the stabilising work goes to plan, urban search-and-rescue teams may be able to enter the building and begin retrieving bodies on Thursday. They do not expect to find any survivors. Bedsheets tied together and lowered from an upper-storey window still flap in the breeze as evidence of a desperate escape attempt."

240 Number of people
who are feared dead in the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that shook Christchurch last week

2 degrees
The angle by which the Hotel Grand Chancellor has been leaning since the earthquake