Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 5, 1993 TAG: 9310050056
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: KILLARI, INDIA LENGTH: Medium
She was rescued Monday, when her father returned to the village from the hospital and asked soldiers to help him look for his daughter's body. They brought out a wide-eyed little girl, frail and dehydrated but alive.
"By all logical thinking, she should have died," said Lt. Col. Anuj Kumar Ghosh, an army doctor who treated her. "It is nothing but a miracle."
Thursday's earthquake destroyed all but a few buildings in Manglur, the village where Priyanka's family lived, and leveled villages across southwest India.
Unofficial estimates of the death toll go as high as 30,000. Authorities say they have identified 10,000 victims so far.
"We do not have a final figure yet," Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao said Monday, after touring quake-stricken villages. "I hope to God it is not what is being reported."
On the night of the quake, Priyanka was lying on the floor and apparently rolled under the cot where her parents were sleeping. She was found under the cot, trapped by heavy stones.
"I didn't know whether to believe it or not when the soldiers said Priyanka is alive," said her 30-year-old father, Venkat Javalge, who is a farmer.
Troops rushed Priyanka to an army infirmary in Killari, five miles away, where doctors gave her oxygen.
"We felt great," said Lt. Col. Vinod Aurora, after pronouncing the toddler in stable condition. "It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We may never see such a miracle in our careers again."
Javalge, his eyes brimming with tears, clutched Priyanka to his chest and mumbled, "Thank you, doctor sahib," as an army jeep carried father and daughter to a hospital for further care.
Three babies were found alive amid wreckage on Saturday, two days after the earthquake.
Prime Minister Rao toured the quake region Monday and was besieged by survivors.
"Please make arrangements for our housing," said Nirnaly Bhosle, who lost his brother and sister-in-law in the earthquake. "We are all sleeping in the open now."
Rao told a news conference, "We have to rebuild entire villages . . . and give people houses better than the ones they lived in."
Officials began counting survivors to try to determine how many people actually died in the earthquake, India's worst in 50 years.
Early estimates of the death toll have been based in part on reports by village leaders of the number of people missing and presumed buried. But many of those people may have fled the area in panic.
by CNB