Musings of a Soldier

By Maj. Gen. Jarken Gamlin (Rtd.)AVSM, SM,VSM

Does the date 25th April 2015 ring a bell? I don’t think so, right?! But, scratch your head and perhaps, you would recall the massive earthquake that had shaken up Nepal and the entire Northern India on this fateful day. I remember it was a beautiful Saturday morning. Beautiful because offices were closed and one had time to laze around at home! I was then posted in the Integrated HQ of Ministry of Defence, New Delhi with a ‘Monday to Friday’ routine. At around eleven in the morning, we were literally and rudely jolted out of our lethargy as our apartment building started to shake violently, and it felt as though the entire structure was going to collapse. We all scrambled down and ran out in the open. As the neighborhood stood shaken, we shared our concerns and wondered if the earthquake had affected any other part of the globe since the intensity, by our collective conservative estimate, was way beyond 6 on the Richter scale. Anyway, an hour or so later, once the tremors subsided, we all ambled back to our flats, albeit reluctantly.
Despite the lingering anxiety I decided to play golf that day – you see, as golfers, it is unethical to let down your ‘four-ball’ which had been fixed a day prior! And by the time we winded up our game it was close to six in the evening. When I reached home my ‘buddy’, a young bubbly Gorkha Johnny from Nepal, informed me about the numerous telephone calls he had had to attend on the landline at home. Obviously, my mobile was on silence mode the whole afternoon as I brook no interference during a course of golf play! He even admonished me politely for having put him through some awkward moments - apparently, some of the callers had vented their frustration on him for not being able to access me! After I saw the number of missed calls and messages on my mobile, I realized something was afoot. The duty officer in the Army HQ curtly informed that I was required to take off for Nepal as a part of a rescue and relief task force which was being mustered by the Armed Forces, and that I had been handpicked by the Army Chief to be part of the team. I was politely asked to report to Hindon Air Force Base, Delhi forthwith. Till then I was totally oblivious to the unprecedented scale of death and devastation which had occurred in Nepal that day. It indeed was a singular honour for me to have been handpicked for this onerous task codenamed ‘Operation Maitrey”. 
The Task Force (TF) was a composite mix of doctors, paramedics, engineers, paratroopers, helicopters [Advance Landing Helicopter (ALH) and MI 17] and many other smaller contingents such as Military Police, Signal, Electrical Mechanical Engineer, Ordnance and Services detachments. By 0800 hours on 26th April 2015, we landed at Kathmandu International Airport. Soon as we disembarked from the humungous C-13 airplane the first aftershock of 6.7 magnitudes hit us, as if mother nature was extending a very well synchronized warm welcome. It was scary to see the seismic waves literally rippling across the tarmac and people wobbling like penguins on a treadmill! As passengers from the terminal ran out on to the tarmac screaming and shouting the whole airport turned into a chaotic mess. For the next two nights such aftershocks kept us on tenterhooks and had us scrambling out of our bedrooms in chappals in the dead of the night. 
It soon dawned on us that the civil administration had gone into a freeze as we could not find an immediate responder on arrival at Kathmandu. However, the Indian Military Attaché, a smart strapping Colonel from the Indian Army at the Indian Embassy at Nepal, managed to get us through to the Nepal Army and soon after we got down to brass tacks. 
It was decided to split the TF into two – one based at Kathmandu and the other at Pokhra. I was tasked to head the Pokhra TF while a Major General remained at Kathmandu as the overall team leader. My TF had a fleet of four ALHs (Army Aviation) and four MI-17s (Indian Air Force) for conduct of rescue and relief missions. The next day I took a reconnaissance flight to the most affected area on the North West of Kathmandu; made a short landing at Barpak, the epicenter of the earthquake, to assess the damages. Imagine being struck by an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 on Richter scale at ground zero. Only a few concrete houses remained standing; others had all been razed to ground. A team of doctors, engineers and other elements was constituted to conduct immediate rescue and relief operations at Barpak. By the evening of 27th April, the team was at Barpak, precisely 48 hours after the first wave had struck Nepal. It was to the credit of India that ours was the first responder to this calamity, that too, with the largest complement of men and material. 
Thereafter, for the next 40 days we conducted rescue missions and ferried relief materials to remote inaccessible areas without a let up. The Nepal Army provided full support in ensuring safe loading/unloading of passengers, materials and casualties. Our ‘sorties’ would start at the break of dawn and continue till late in the afternoon. Despite inclement weather at times our rescue and relief efforts continued unabated. Our technical support team worked tirelessly to ensure all aircrafts remained operational 24/7. You may recollect almost 9000 lives were lost and more than 22000 people injured during this quake – it was a human tragedy of enormous scale. 
Subsequently, other countries too joined the fray in rendering assistance to Nepal. In fact, the government of Nepal had to divide the ‘areas of responsibility’ into four main parts to apportion one each to India, China, Russia and the US. The most affected area North West of Kathmandu was assigned to India. This apportioning helped preclude any kind of misunderstanding between the nations arising out of jurisdictional overlaps. 
Our young pilots displayed tremendous sense of commitment. Filled with loads of empathy and positive spirit they undertook daring missions beyond the call of duty to provide relief or to evacuate the injured or to extricate the stranded. I remember, during one such rescue missions a few tourists were spotted on a mountain slope, stranded without food or water, waving frantically at the ALH flying overhead. The pilots, two young officers from the Army Aviation, decided to have a closer look. Since it was not possible to land on the mountain slope, they hovered precariously close to the ground while the stranded tourists, four of them, clambered on board.  Unfortunately, the ALH went far too close to a tree and the rotor blades hit the nearest branch with a loud crack. Although the ALH managed to return to the base safely along with the tourists, on inspection, it emerged that one of the blades had developed a yawning crack and was on the verge of falling apart. It was nothing less than a miracle that the helicopter reached back in one piece. Our young pilots indeed had a close shave that day but then, I guess, fortune favours the brave! After all it was not only about their flying skills but also about their courage and ability to take risks. The blades were replaced within six hours of landing and the accident was attributed to vagaries of nature and flying debris!
At one instance, during one of my visits to the affected areas, I wanted to land at a particular village but could not find any suitable landing ground. The pilots made a daring touchdown on a paddy field on the outskirt of the village. This paddy field - measuring a mere 8x6 meters - was on the slope of a steep hill where locals practiced ‘terrace farming’ - a more productive method of farming in these hilly terrains. It was team work at its best as the pilot and co-pilot kept guiding each other – ‘left, left…. right, right’ as they peered through the windows …. a ‘thumbs up’, and lo behold, a safe landing. Poofs! What skill and daring. A little miscalculation and the rotor blades could have actually hit the bund on the upper slopes. Yes, it was that close! 
On another occasion the pilot landed and perched precariously on the roof of a small house in a village which was completely destroyed by the quake and managed to evacuate a casualty. There were many tales of daring flying-maneuvers undertaken under extremely hazardous conditions, and one couldn’t help but feel proud of these young pilots. Of course, as a team leader I kept counseling them to go slow, but to no avail. Not that I minded it!
I remember being hosted for a dinner towards the end of this mission by some of the locals at Pokhra. As a mark of gratitude towards the Indian Army, they offered me an open invite to visit Pokhra with my family, but I decided to take a rain check. The visit is pending and now that the Corona threat has abated it is perhaps time to plan a trip to Nepal. Hopefully the rain check will hold true even today!
The Chief of Nepal Army personally hosted a farewell dinner for us at Kathmandu prior our departure for India. He was unequivocal in his praise for the Indian Army and the contributions made by the Task Force in assisting the Nepalese government stabilize the situation. All in all, ‘Operation Maitrey’ was a huge success as a humanitarian effort and enabled bridge the diplomatic gap between India and Nepal. 

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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