Pod Insights Real Survival Stories Earthquake in India: Buried Alive About this episode A young master’s student studying in the US travels back to India to visit loved ones. It’s a welcome break from his studies. But one morning Viral Dalal is awoken - suddenly and violently - by a devastating earthquake. Trapped in a coffin-sized air pocket beneath the rubble, all Viral can do is scratch at the walls of his concrete tomb with a tiny scrap of metal. As the hours turn into days, he will cling onto hope…
A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins.
Written by Joe Viner | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Matt Peaty | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Ally here with cash when you need it. You know, for the taxi that saved you. The guy who helped you move. Wait, are you supposed to tip at the car wash? Don't be in... Ally's 75,000 fee-free ATMs mean you always have cash when you need it. Ally Bank Member, FDIC.
0:20 John Hopkins? It's January the 28th, 2001.
0:24 John Hopkins? Amid the sun-drenched plains of northwest India stands the historic walled city of Bhuj. Famed for its rich cultural heritage and the grand beauty of its architecture, Bhuj boasts an impressive array of ornate royal palaces, sacred temples, and lushly planted gardens.
0:45 John Hopkins? But today, the city lies in ruins.
0:56 John Hopkins? Forty-eight hours ago, an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale struck the state of Gujarat.
1:04 John Hopkins? Across the region, people were looking forward to celebrating India's Republic Day, commemorating the birth of the country as an independent nation. Instead of the feasts and flag-waving parades, emergency rescue teams now scour the debris for bodies. In Bhuj, just over 10 miles from the epicenter, where the ground convulsed for two terrifying minutes, the city has been leveled.
1:30 John Hopkins? Bridges have buckled. Houses slump into their foundations. Apartment buildings are reduced to piles of brick and glass. The city's main Hindu temple is crumbled into dust, leaving its golden shrine exposed and gleaming amid the ruins.
1:54 John Hopkins? In the heart of the city, emergency crews are digging through the wreckage of a block of flats, once the tallest building in Bhuj. The likelihood of anyone being alive beneath this mountain of concrete feels desperately slim, and only getting slimmer with each passing minute.
2:12 John Hopkins? Every so often, the rescuers pause to listen out for voices.
2:19 John Hopkins? But it's no use. If anyone is alive down there, they'll never make themselves heard through the rubble.
2:28 John Hopkins? Meanwhile, forty feet beneath the excavator's claws.
2:39 Speaker 02 I had shouted as loud as I possibly could. I realized very quickly that when I shout, my voice is not going anywhere. Because it felt like I'm shouting, putting a pill on my mouth.
2:52 John Hopkins? Twenty-four-year-old Viral Dalal lies in the pitch black, listening to the sound of his voice die without an echo.
3:01 John Hopkins? Viral has been trapped down here for two days, lying on his back in a space no bigger than a coffin. It's a miracle he survived the building's collapse, and he has no idea if anyone is looking for him.
3:14 John Hopkins? But one thing is certain: He's not giving up.
3:18 Speaker 02 Every day is a new day, every minute is a new minute. You've got to solve the same problem with a different solution. So, right now, I don't have much option but to keep going.
3:35 John Hopkins? Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations, people suddenly forced to fight for their lives.
3:56 John Hopkins? In this episode, we meet Viral Dalal.
4:00 John Hopkins? In early 2001, Viral, a master's student studying in the US, travels back to India to visit loved ones. It's a welcome break from his studies. But on the morning of January 26th, this time of joy is interrupted violently and suddenly by a devastating, high-magnitude earthquake.
4:22 Speaker 02 I had no control over my body. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't sit on my bed. The bed is jumping up and down from the floor. I am right on top of the bed, and I am becoming airborne.
4:36 John Hopkins? Viral will find himself trapped in a coffin-sized air pocket beneath the rubble.
4:41 Speaker 02 And suddenly, this shaking is gone. It's just gone. It's not there anymore. And I am stuck in a place, which is the darkest place I have seen in my life.
4:54 John Hopkins? Intent on finding a way out, Viral will scratch at the walls of his concrete tomb with the only thing he has to hand, a tiny scrap of metal. As the hours turn into days, he will cling on to perhaps the most powerful motivation there is: the promise of seeing his family again.
5:11 Speaker 02 That give me this drive to keep going, keep digging. It will make a difference. Little by little, I will make progress, and I will be out there.
5:22 John Hopkins? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Real Survival Stories.
5:48 John Hopkins? It's Christmas Eve 2000 in New York. Viral Dalal stands in the security line at John F. Kennedy Airport. A 24-year-old college student shuffles forward, straining beneath the weight of his carry-on backpack and bulging shopping bags. He heaves his luggage onto the conveyor belt, then walks through the body scanner, praying the gifts he's brought for his family are allowed through.
6:18 John Hopkins? Thankfully, the TSA agent waves him on.
6:22 John Hopkins? Viral takes his bags and hurries off to find his gate.
6:29 John Hopkins? Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, snow falls silently onto the runway. Way off in the distance, the Manhattan skyline twinkles in the fading light. Viral glances at the departure screen. His flight's been delayed due to bad weather, so he's still got a few hours until he starts boarding. He sits on the floor with his back against a pillar and takes out his notebook.
6:56 John Hopkins? He begins writing, listing everything he's going to do during his five-week stay in India. The friends he wants to see, the food he wants to eat, all the things he's been missing for the past fifteen months.
7:09 Speaker 02 I was this person who wanted to just reach India and hug everybody, see everyone, and, you know, kind of tell them everything that I had been through in the last fifteen months. I had had a very difficult time, and there were struggles, there were great moments, there was learning, there was this New York City, there is the Port Authority, Port Terminal, how does that look? The Empire State Building, how does that look? Everything. I just wanted to talk for hours and tell everybody what I did in the last fifteen months.
7:48 John Hopkins? It's hard to know where to begin.
7:52 John Hopkins? When he first arrived in America to begin his master's degree, Viral went through a challenging period of adjustment. Everything was foreign: the language, the food, the weather. It was a lot for a young man to process. But he persevered and gradually settled into his exciting new life.
8:12 John Hopkins? Throughout it all, his parents were a constant source of support, offering firm but loving encouragement from the other end of the phone.
8:20 Speaker 02 My father and mother, I was very lucky to have parents who had incredible values. There was this, you know, a combination of love and at the same time, discipline. And that was a beautiful balance. My mom was the person who was the go-to person for all of us, whether it was my father, or me, or my brother. So she was the glue of the family. Because she was the happy one, she was the one who will bring love, she was the one who will get things done. I was very, very scared of my father. Because my father was the one who would kind of bring in discipline. And the first thing he would ask is, "Did you do your homework? Are you going to do well in your studies?"
9:04 Speaker 02 And I was always scared. Whereas during later time, I came to know that he was actually very soft from inside, but he had to have that shell.
9:20 John Hopkins? Despite his father's badgering, Viral was no model student.
9:25 John Hopkins? More practical than academic, he preferred tinkering with machines to sitting in the classroom.
9:31 John Hopkins? When he got older and the opportunity arose to go and study computer science in the US, he leapt at the chance.
9:40 Speaker 02 I did my schooling, I was not a great student. I was kind of okay. But I was their rebel, who would wanna do things differently, test the boundaries out all the time. A lot of times, it worked in my favor, so it made me stronger. So as life continued, that personality of that little child, it be, that stayed.
10:09 Speaker 00 Ally here with cash when you need it. You know, for the taxi that saved you. The guy who helped you move. Wait, are you supposed to tip at the car wash? Don't be in... Ally's 75,000 fee-free ATMs mean you always have cash when you need it. Ally Bank Member FDIC.
10:28 John Hopkins? It's 24 hours later at Ahmedabad International Airport.
10:34 John Hopkins? As soon as he steps through the sliding doors of the arrivals terminal, Viral is greeted by a wave of heat and familiarity.
10:42 John Hopkins? Taxi drivers tout for custom in the local Gujarati dialect.
10:48 John Hopkins? Sputtering rickshaws weave through the traffic, blasting their horns at no one in particular. Viral smiles and breathes in the warm air, fragrant with acacia and tamarind.
11:01 John Hopkins? Winter in New York already feels like a distant memory. There are people everywhere. Vendors selling fruit and bottled water, businessmen hailing cabs, children being scolded by women in brightly colored saris. Viral scans the crowd for his own people.
11:20 John Hopkins? And then, there they are. His brother, Roshan, with a broad smile across his face, his sister-in-law carrying his nephew in her arms. And there's his mother, rushing towards him with tears in her eyes.
11:37 Speaker 02 I cannot forget that moment when I just hugged my mother and I told her, "I'm here, I'm here." And then I touched her feet. So touching feet is like a form of respect for elders in India. And that's when I saw my two-year-old nephew. And my nephew was like, "This, you know, this little thing." As soon as I saw him, I took him in my arms and I was like, "Your uncle is here and we are going to have a great, wonderful time here."
12:10 John Hopkins? Viral puts his nephew down and embraces his brother.
12:15 John Hopkins? The two siblings are very different. Roshan is almost six years older. He's bookish and reserved, while Viral is the rebellious extrovert.
12:26 Speaker 02 When I was younger, I would fight a lot with my brother. But as we got older, things got so much better. That bond started forming. And it was very different for me to know that, oh my god, my brother is everything for me, right?
12:44 John Hopkins? After hugging each member of his family, Viral looks around for his father. But he's not here.
12:52 John Hopkins? His mom explains that because of Viral's delayed flight, his father had to go back to work in the city of Buch, around 200 miles away. He's sorry to have missed his son's arrival, but he'll join them at the weekend.
13:05 John Hopkins? Viral is disappointed. The weekend is three days away. But he understands.
13:14 John Hopkins? That night, back at home, mom cooks a special welcome home meal.
13:20 John Hopkins? After dinner, happy, full and jet-lagged, Viral goes to bed, falling asleep within seconds of his head hitting the pillow.
13:31 John Hopkins? In the morning, he wakes to find an unexpected visitor.
13:36 Speaker 02 I think it was probably 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning. That's when I realized that someone moved my comforter a little bit. And I opened my eyes, and I see that it was my dad. I'm like, Dad, how come you are here? I just spoke to him last night. And he told me that, oh, I'm stuck, I cannot be there. I'll be there in the, over the weekend. And he's here. How come you're here?
14:05 John Hopkins? His father tells him to go back to sleep, get his rest. He'll explain everything later. Then he leaves the room. But Viral is now wide awake, bursting with questions. He gets out of bed and pads downstairs, where he finds his dad reading the newspaper in his favorite armchair. He stands and extends a hand for his son to shake, a typical greeting from the reserved stoical man.
14:31 John Hopkins? Viral grins and takes it.
14:34 Speaker 02 And as always, his hand, the palm, it was strong, hard, hard hand. And he gave a strong handshake. How are you? I'm doing great, Papa. And then we sat and the question was, how come Dad you're here? You just spoke to me last night, where were you? He said I was at the bus station. And I just got on the bus and I was here five thirty in the morning. I had to see you. And then he did not complete his sentence. That's when my mom was like right near the kitchen. And she said, he will not say that he loves you. He will not be able to say it ever.
15:19 Speaker 02 At least sometimes, say that to your children. And my dad was like, ah, yeah, that's fine. So he, he, he would never say that it was out of affection. But his actions would show that.
15:36 John Hopkins? With his father's arrival, the jigsaw puzzle is complete. Here they all are, gathered together under one roof.
15:44 Speaker 02 That's when our family was together again. And life couldn't be better. This was the most magnificent time of my life. When I could recreate these moments of the past. When my dad is sitting in the couch, reading his newspaper, talking about usual things. Me doing nothing. And my brother being around, my sister-in-law being around. And this little Shaolin, my two-year-old nephew, moving along, doing his stuff.
16:26 John Hopkins? The next few weeks are spent doing all the things Viral planned to do while here. Seeing friends, eating out, spending time with family. The only downside is how fast the time seems to be passing. Before he knows it, it'll be time to go back to America to resume his studies.
16:43 John Hopkins? A week before he is due to leave, the family books a holiday to a beach resort in the west of the state. The plan is to travel to Buch, the city where Viral's father works and lives part-time. The morning after, they'll wake early and drive the short distance to the resort. On January the 25th, the family takes a bus to Bhuj.
17:06 John Hopkins? That evening, they eat at one of Dad's favorite restaurants. Then they go back to their rented apartment, where Viral stays up late playing with his nephew and, once everyone else has turned in, watching MTV on his own.
17:19 John Hopkins? Finally, at 2 AM, he follows the rest of his family to bed.
17:30 John Hopkins? It's about 8:45 the following morning. Viral dozes peacefully in bed, the sound of his family preparing breakfast in the next room filtering into his dreams.
17:43 John Hopkins? Then, he is shaken from sleep by a deep, insistent rumbling.
17:50 Speaker 02 The first thought was that this was the sound of thunder. But thunder is something which, the sound of thunder is like two or three seconds long. But this, the intensity kept increasing. So it was this kind of song, "Ohhhhh", but it increased. So I immediately opened my eyes and I was like, "What is that?"
18:12 John Hopkins? If not thunder, then what? Today is India's Republic Day. Maybe there's a military flyover happening? Or could those be enemy jets? Bhuj is near the border with Pakistan. Are they under attack?
18:27 Speaker 02 Before I could complete even that part, the intensity had gone from 1 to 5 to 15. That's when I knew instantly that it was nothing else but an earthquake.
18:42 John Hopkins? Viral sits bolt upright. Everything in the room is rattling and juddering. Suddenly, the wardrobe in the corner slides across the floor, doors flung wide, metal legs screeching over the polished granite. A hard, crunching sound makes him look up.
19:01 Speaker 02 I see a six to eight inch crack going across the ceiling. And that's when our building started to shake. It started to shake and this shake was not a shake which you see anywhere else, which is just a rattle. It was not a rattle. This was a crazy jumping up and down motion.
19:19 John Hopkins? Viral tries to get out of bed, but it's impossible.
19:24 John Hopkins? He has no control over his own body. The mattress bounces violently beneath him. Objects fly through the air. The ceiling fan swings wildly back and forth. Metal blades scraping the ceiling. You can hear his mother yelling in the next room. Then, something crashes to the floor next to the bed. The next thing Viral knows, chunks of plaster are raining down, exposing the bent steel support rods that run through the concrete building.
19:53 Speaker 02 I see that this ceiling is now falling. So I shift, I don't know how long it took. It probably took like a split of a second and I shift my legs this way. And that's exactly when the entire building collapsed.
20:15 John Hopkins? Just fifteen seconds after Viral opened his eyes, the ceiling gives way entirely.
20:24 John Hopkins? Bringing everything crashing down with it, all six floors above their second story apartment. Viral curls himself into the fetal position as several thousand tons of brick and steel thunder down around him.
20:44 John Hopkins? A few seconds later, he opens his eyes, but he can't see anything. The earth is still shaking. He can feel it, distant tremors rumbling up through the ground below. Unbelievably, he's still breathing. Somehow, he hasn't been crushed by the weight of the rubble.
21:03 John Hopkins? But before he has time to process what's happened, he feels the whole building start to tilt.
21:12 John Hopkins? It's not over.
21:15 John Hopkins? Viral makes his body as stiff as possible as the last structural foundations of the apartment block give way. In the darkness, he feels gravity taking hold as he, the building, and every human being inside it topples over sideways.
21:32 John Hopkins? His back hits something hard, knocking the wind out of his lungs. The roar continues as the rest of the building crashes down on top of him. An avalanche of concrete, glass, and cement grinding, scraping, and shifting as the mountain of rubble settles. Viral braces for the inevitable. He pushes his palms against the concrete slab above him, exerting every ounce of energy he has to hold the roof up as the earth continues to shake.
22:05 John Hopkins? And then, at last, nothing.
22:12 Speaker 02 And suddenly, this shaking is gone. It's just gone. It's not there anymore. I can hear the rumbling still, just a little bit in the background, like a faraway airplane. There is silence. There is nothing. And I'm stuck in a place which is the darkest place I have seen in my life.
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23:01 John Hopkins? It's just before 9 a.m. on January 26, 2001, in Bhuj, northwest India.
23:08 John Hopkins? Viral Dalal lies on his back in the dark.
23:13 John Hopkins? He's in a state of bewildered disbelief. Just seconds ago, he was dozing in bed. Now, he is entombed within a mountain of rubble, surrounded by nothing but darkness and the chalky smell of cement.
23:28 John Hopkins? He starts blindly feeling around him, assessing his whereabouts. And then, a stomach-churning pulse of panic.
23:39 Speaker 02 I was in a lying down position, so I tried to raise my head above. I very quickly realized that I have about two inches above my forehead. Then I move my arms around and I quickly realized that actually I cannot move my arms. And that's it. I cannot stand up. I cannot do anything.
23:57 John Hopkins? Miraculously, the pieces of wall and ceiling have collapsed around him in such a way that shields Viral from the crushing weight above. There isn't a scratch on him. He is encased in a pocket of air no larger than a coffin, with no room to sit up, roll over, or stretch out his arms. It all seems too bizarre, too terrible to be real.
24:22 Speaker 02 I closed my eyes and I said, "Let this nightmare get over. Let me just wake up. I need to wake up." Because this was something incomprehensible. How is it possible that you are in this place? Because that's just impossible. You've got to get back to your life right away. Wake up, go to the resort, and that's it. Just let this thing break. I just want to wake up now. I still can smell the cement. I still can smell the dust because it hasn't settled yet. I still can feel that I'm in a place where I can touch the gravel. So I keep my hands like this. I don't want to touch anything. I don't want to
25:05 Speaker 02 break that belief that this is actually a nightmare.
25:11 John Hopkins? Eventually, the belief flickers and dies. This is no nightmare.
25:18 John Hopkins? But Viral still isn't ready to accept his new reality.
25:23 Speaker 02 I pushed the slab or whatever was right above me and I'm trying to push it with as much power as I possibly can in a lying down position. It did not move even a micron.
25:36 John Hopkins? Frantically, he slams his palms against the concrete slab over and over, to no avail.
25:44 John Hopkins? Finally, he opens his mouth and bellows into the darkness.
25:49 John Hopkins? The sound seems to die before it's left his lips, snuffed out by the dense slab of ceiling, two inches from his mouth.
26:00 John Hopkins? But he keeps trying, emptying his lungs in a wild, full-throated roar.
26:06 Speaker 02 It felt like I'm shouting, putting a pill on my mouth. My sound is not making it through anywhere, because this is like an enclosed space. So, after shouting for many, many times, I realized that I need to conserve my energy.
26:25 John Hopkins? His body thrums with adrenaline. With each thumping heartbeat, the lump of dread in his throat grows.
26:33 John Hopkins? He has to stay calm.
26:36 John Hopkins? There can't be much breathable air in a space this small, and hyperventilating will only use up his limited oxygen faster. The only way to avoid suffocating is by making an air hole in the concrete. And to do that, he'll need a tool.
26:55 John Hopkins? Feeling around him, Viral's hand brushes something sharp and brittle. It's the remains of the fluorescent strip light from the bedroom ceiling.
27:05 John Hopkins? He starts sifting through the gravel, and eventually, among the shards of glass and electrical components, his fingers close around a six-inch piece of aluminium, part of the strip light's outer casing.
27:17 Speaker 02 I told myself, I'm going to use this to make a hole, so that I can breathe through. And I have about a few hours, because after that, the oxygen or the air around me will get stale, and it will be hard for me to survive after that.
27:34 John Hopkins? The concrete around him is cool to the touch, smooth as marble, and seemingly utterly impenetrable. A power drill would struggle to break through it, let alone this flimsy piece of aluminium. But it's all he's got.
27:51 John Hopkins? He starts scraping at a spot on the wall, awkwardly twisting his body to get the right leverage.
27:59 John Hopkins? An hour goes by, then another.
28:04 John Hopkins? Eventually, with his shoulders aching and his abdominal muscles burning from the strain, it becomes clear that his fears of running out of oxygen aren't going to come to pass.
28:15 John Hopkins? There must be a crack somewhere, allowing air to enter.
28:19 John Hopkins? Still, Viral keeps going, chiseling, gouging, and scratching for hour after hour.
28:27 John Hopkins? Now that it seems that he won't suffocate, his motivation has changed. Now, it's about getting back to his family, to let them know he is alive.
28:41 Speaker 02 It was not about saving my life, it was not about anything else. It was all about, I need to tell my mom that I'm okay. Because my mom will be someone who will be the most worried about me, because I was the only person who was sleeping, they were all awake. So in my mind, my first thought was that they were all okay, because they probably left the building, or you know, they were able to escape. I had no idea and I couldn't reach them, I couldn't hear them now. But all I wanted to let them know and communicate was one thing. Mom, I am okay. Dad will get me out. You stay calm, I'm okay, don't worry about me. That was all I wanted to convey.
29:31 John Hopkins? It's 24 hours later.
29:34 John Hopkins? Viral glances at his watch.
29:37 John Hopkins? The softly glowing numbers tell him he has been scraping at the same spot on the wall for an entire day, and he's barely made a dent. The exertion has made him desperately hungry, and more pressingly, profoundly thirsty.
29:53 John Hopkins? But he keeps going, unwilling to stop for longer than a few minutes at a time.
29:59 John Hopkins? Occasionally, he slips into a brief, restless sleep. When he wakes, it's impossible to tell how much time has passed.
30:09 Speaker 02 I had no sense of time. The definition of time is light. The definition of time is not how many hours in a day or the rotations of earth. It's basically light. And that I very quickly realized because every single day, each hour, each minute was black for me. If I fell asleep for two hours and I wake up, it felt like I slept a whole day. Or if I just close my eyes, it will feel like I had been napping for a few hours. So, there was no definition of time.
30:47 John Hopkins? Another twenty-four hours go by, another day made up of a thousand eternities.
30:58 John Hopkins? Viral's thirst is becoming intolerable. He runs his bone-dry tongue around the inside of his mouth, but fails to extract a single drop of moisture.
31:10 John Hopkins? He needs a creative solution, a way to generate some saliva.
31:18 Speaker 02 I thought about this incredible food that my mom used to make. And I would think of every single thing that I loved, which is spicy, which is, you know, which will make you really salivate. And it did work. It did work. My tongue got, became wet and then I gulp it down. And I tried to quench my own thirst. This thing did not work for too long, but it did work. It made me realize that my mind was able to do things which can change things for me.
31:50 John Hopkins? For the last forty-eight hours, he's been focused on physical escape.
31:56 John Hopkins? But maybe he should start harnessing the power of his own mind.
32:01 John Hopkins? He looks around at his dark cramped prison and instead of raging against the situation, instead of screaming and clawing at the walls, Viral tries something else. He says to himself, you know what? It could be worse.
32:17 Speaker 02 So I told myself, I said, well, you are in a place which is with nobody in the world, not even an insect knows where you are trapped, where you are. You can do whatever you want. You are in the most secure place in the whole world. Think about people who drowned. Think about people who were in a hurricane, people who were in a shipwreck. You are in such an amazing condition, such an amazing position. And you are crying for water? You are thinking about water? Are you in a better position or not? And that made myself see my own self in a different perspective. I felt that I was, I was okay. I was just thirsty. It's just been like two days since I haven't had water. But so what?
33:06 John Hopkins? The ability to alter his own perspective isn't accidental. It's something he learned from his father.
33:13 John Hopkins? Growing up, his dad had a favorite saying, one he would repeat whenever life got difficult.
33:19 Speaker 02 My father would always say, "Chuchema, chuchema." It simply is a thing where, you know, why are you giving importance to something so small? What's the big deal? Chuchema, what's the big deal? As soon as I hear my father say that, I felt like, yeah, what's the big deal? My mother always used to say that, Viral, I know he can do anything. She will always say that, you can do anything, I know that. And as a child, I believed and I always did believe it. And this was not just a belief, but I knew it, it was a fact.
33:57 Speaker 02 So at this point in time, these were not the things that I was thinking about. These were just part of me.
34:11 John Hopkins? On the third day, when it feels like he might die of dehydration, Viral resorts to drinking his own urine. He chokes it down. A foul taste, a small price to pay for surviving another day.
34:25 John Hopkins? By now though, impatience is setting in.
34:30 John Hopkins? It's been three days since the earthquake, and still no sign of rescue. What's going on up there?
34:37 John Hopkins? Viral strains his ears, listening out for voices or machinery. There is only silence, an endless expanse of nothing. If the rescue operation is underway, there's certainly nowhere close to reaching him.
34:55 John Hopkins? Still, he continues to try and dig his way to freedom. But the lack of progress is starting to affect his morale.
35:04 Speaker 02 After a few hours, I would try to touch the surface where I'm scratching. And the progress was probably 0.1%. And it would be so demotivating, because I have been working, I'm sweating. Because you know, I'm trying to keep my neck up and I'm exerting as much pressure as possible. And nothing is happening.
35:34 John Hopkins? In a flash of anger and despair, Viral throws his metal tool to one side.
35:40 John Hopkins? He's in danger of letting his frustration get the better of him. He needs inspiration.
35:47 Speaker 02 Right now, I don't have much option but to keep going. So I was trying to take this helicopter ride of my life, taking a helicopter view, and trying to see if I can find something from my life that I have done before, I have seen before, and I can use something from the past.
36:08 John Hopkins? What from his past can he utilize to help him right now?
36:13 John Hopkins? There's one story from when he was eight years old. His father, a geologist, would sometimes come home from work with rocks to show the boys. One day, he showed Viral and Roshan a rock with a small, round hole in the side.
36:30 Speaker 02 And he said, "This hole, about one, one and a half inch deep hole, was made by this consistent drop of water falling in the same spot for more than 10 years." As a child, it was not very interesting for me because, yeah, that was okay. I mean, great, but I didn't know the importance of it. But it stayed in my subconscious. And now that I was trying to break this wall, I was thinking of that moment when I was probably like eight or 10 years old, when my father brought this rock. And that gave me this drive to keep going, keep digging. It will make a difference.
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37:52 John Hopkins? It's January 30th, four and a half days since the earthquake. Viral lethargically drags the metal across the concrete wall, where the hole he's carved out is no bigger than a match head.
38:07 John Hopkins? Four days without food have brought on waves of intense exhaustion. In the pitch darkness, the boundary between sleep and wakefulness has become permeable, with very little difference between the two states.
38:24 John Hopkins? But then, from somewhere very distant, he hears it.
38:30 John Hopkins? Dogs barking.
38:34 John Hopkins? Listening closely, he hears the distant rumble of a vehicle.
38:39 John Hopkins? And finally, faint but clear enough to convince him he's not dreaming, the sound of voices.
38:49 Speaker 02 So I shouted for help. I said, "Bachao, bachao means help." And "Koi chhe, koi chhe, hello, hello," I shouted aloud. And then someone responded very quickly. Someone said, "I hear a voice. Stop, stop, stop, stop. I can hear it. I can hear it." So he told me to repeat. He said, "Koi chhe?" Like, "Is anybody there?" And I shouted back. And that's when the person outside confirmed that he could hear someone from inside. And that's when it was known that there's someone stuck.
39:23 John Hopkins? The rescue team assure him that they're working on getting him out as soon as possible.
39:28 John Hopkins? But Viral isn't worried about himself. He needs to know what happened to his family.
39:35 John Hopkins? A few hours later, a familiar voice filters down through the rubble, that of his cousin's husband, Raghu, who is helping with the rescue effort. Raghu asks if he's okay. Viral says he's fine, but what about the others?
39:50 Speaker 02 My first question was, "Where is my family? Where is everybody else?" So he said, "You first come out. Everything will be fine. You first come out." I said, "But where are they?" And he said, "We don't know, but you first come out. Don't worry about them."
40:08 John Hopkins? It takes hours for the rescuers to reach him.
40:13 John Hopkins? When they're close enough, they drill through the concrete slab above his head, creating a hole that opens up like a sudden rift in the night sky.
40:27 Speaker 02 And that is the first time when I saw the light, the light for the first time in the last four and a half days. And I can never forget this moment when I'm lying down and I see this light coming into this little black, black, blackest enclosure and filling it up with light.
40:53 John Hopkins? The rescue team pull Viral from the ruins of the building.
40:58 John Hopkins? After nearly five days buried, he's finally out.
41:04 John Hopkins? But there's no relief to be had. The apocalyptic scene that greets him is far worse than anything he could have imagined. The entire city has been leveled. Gray dust clings to his pajamas as he is led barefoot to awaiting ambulance. Concerned relatives and neighbors surround him, but Viral only has questions for them.
41:28 Speaker 02 I asked them if they had found my father, mother, brother, my sister-in-law, or my nephew. And the answer was no, they were looking for answers from me if I had heard their voice. And that is a time when I realized that they were probably all still inside. Once again, this nightmare was not yet over.
42:00 John Hopkins? It's January the 30th, 2001, in Buj, in northwest India.
42:07 John Hopkins? After being pulled from the rubble, Viral insists he's ready to join the search effort immediately.
42:13 John Hopkins? But the rescue team won't entertain the idea. The ambulance takes him to a nearby hospital where doctors check him for injuries. To their astonishment, he is completely unscathed.
42:27 John Hopkins? Half an hour later, Viral is back at the site of the collapsed building, helping the emergency rescue workers excavate the ruins.
42:36 John Hopkins? When he was trapped under the wreckage, Viral held fast to the belief that his family was safe. Now, doubt begins to creep in.
42:50 Speaker 02 It broke the belief that I had when I was inside. But now it was not just a belief, but now it was hope. So, hope was taking shape. It was time for me to help.
43:05 John Hopkins? Viral is able to provide the rescue workers with information about the layout of the apartment and roughly where his family members likely were at the time of the building's collapse. The hydraulic arm of the excavator claws away the rubble, hauling aside heaps of shredded plaster, pulverized cement, and mangled steel pipe work. The work is slow, painstaking, agonizing. When night falls, the search continues beneath floodlights. Viral's relatives urge him to take a break. He needs to eat something.
43:40 Speaker 02 How can I be hungry? How can I think of hunger when my brother, or my mother, or my father, or my sister-in-law are probably dealing with or fighting between life and death? But my relatives took me there and said that if you want to work tomorrow, if you want to help tomorrow, you need energy first.
44:02 John Hopkins? Eventually, he gives in. He forces down some food, then spends a sleepless night in an emergency tent set up for rescue workers.
44:13 Speaker 02 I was looking at the top of this tent, and I was just praying to God that, please,
44:20 Speaker 02 get my family back. Let this nightmare get over them.
44:29 John Hopkins? Tragically, his prayers go unanswered. Over the course of the next four days, the rescue team pulls each of his family members from the ruins. None of them survived.
44:44 Speaker 02 I lost my father, mother, brother, my sister-in-law, and my two-year-old nephew in these four days. That's when everything broke loose. The hope that I had, it crashed to the ground. Everything was finished.
45:09 John Hopkins? In the aftermath of the earthquake, the full devastating scale of the catastrophe gradually comes into focus.
45:18 John Hopkins? In towns and cities across Gujarat, bodies continue to be exhumed from the rubble.
45:24 John Hopkins? Viral performs last rites for each of his family members. Then he returns to his childhood home in Ahmedabad.
45:33 John Hopkins? But everything's different now.
45:36 John Hopkins? His loved ones' absence is felt everywhere.
45:41 Speaker 02 I'm returning to the same house. Now it's just a house, it's not a home. I'm looking at the same couch, where my dad would sit with a newspaper and a magazine, and I'm looking at the same place. And I'm still hoping that my mom will open the door. And when I open the door, my dad will still be sitting there. Or somebody will be running down the stairs, you know? It's not there. Looking at these posters in my room, and I'm going into my brother's bedroom, and looking at my mom and dad's room.
46:17 Speaker 02 Everything is just dull. Everything is dead. Everything is so lame. These posters look so lame. It just is so empty, void. And that was the reality of it. I had to live with that.
46:36 John Hopkins? Viral must now grapple with the question of what comes next. His scheduled return to the US comes and goes. The college admissions office lets him defer the completion of his degree for as long as he needs. But how long does he need? How does anyone pick themselves up after this?
46:58 Speaker 02 Now it was time for me to build my life from scratch. From, not ground up, but from the dungeons. And I was not even interested. What are you gonna do? What would you do? You wouldn't know what to do, because we are not trained for it. We not know, we don't know what, like, you know, how to. This is not in our schooling or... Nobody teaches us any of it, right?
47:33 John Hopkins? In the immediate term, he has his family's legal affairs to get in order. That at least provides his days with some structure.
47:43 John Hopkins? More than 20,000 people were killed in the Gujarat earthquake, prompting a period of national mourning across India.
47:51 John Hopkins? But as the weeks turn into months, stories about the earthquake fade from the news cycle. As time goes on, Viral's personal tragedy is one he must navigate alone.
48:06 Speaker 02 But I don't know, I'm lost. I don't know how I'm going to move forward, take first step, or why should I? How would I?
48:17 Speaker 02 But then again, "Chu chhe ma", what's the big deal? My son can do anything. Viral can do anything. And someone says that with 100% conviction, and when that becomes your being, you go with it.
48:35 John Hopkins? You go with it. His family might be gone, but their belief in him endures. It endures so long as he remembers it and gives life to it.
48:47 John Hopkins? And so, seven months after the earthquake, Viral packs up a suitcase with clothes, books, and family photographs, and returns to America to complete his master's degree. From that moment on, he makes it his obligation to seek light in the darkness. It isn't always easy, but for Viral, everything boils down to a single choice: light or dark.
49:14 Speaker 02 I could have chosen to stay in that darkness in my life. And I could have chosen to kind of, you know, not move very much after that, talk about all the darkness in life. But there are two aspects to it. You either talk about all the darkness, or you focus on the light. What did you learn from it? How can you teach somebody something from what you have learned? How can you enhance your own life? How can you make life better?
49:48 John Hopkins? Today, almost 25 years on from the earthquake, Viral has built his life back up from the dungeons. He lives in Virginia in the US with a family of his own. Again and again, the weight of his grief pulls him down. But he says that whenever he feels lost, he tries to turn to the people who first showed him the way.
50:12 Speaker 02 Every step of the way, I always go back to the point where I think of my parents. And if they were present, would they like this or would they not? I get my answer very quickly.
50:31 John Hopkins? Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet David Chikotello. In the spring of 2011, the 57-year-old college administrator sets out to explore Utah's canyons with his older brother Louis. For David, these climbing trips are as much about bonding with his sibling as they are about enjoying nature. But when a tricky maneuver in a remote desert canyon goes horribly wrong, David finds himself stranded without a rope and without his brother and mentor. Battling bitter cold and the ever-present danger of rockfall, David has no choice but to hunker down on a narrow ledge with scant supplies and no means of escape. That's next time on Real Survival Stories.
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