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Phone bills, ham radios and the quake

Shanti Shankarkumar

It is almost a month since the earthquake hit Gujarat, but Pallavi Raina continues to be relentless in her attempts to locate family and friends of people living in the United States and other countries.

Till last count, the 24-year-old Marine biology student at a Washington DC area university (name intentionally withheld) has helped locate 608 people and about 500 families. She had the help of her Hyderabad-based brother and an ingenious network of HAM operators in Gujarat who withstood red tapism and army intimidation as they relayed news about the status of people to frantic friends and relatives.

It started when Raina first heard the news of the earthquake in the early hours of January 26. A friend who was desperately trying to get in touch with her parents who live near Surat sought her help in locating them. Raina immediately contacted her brother Sanjay in Hyderabad via e-mail.

He in turn sent a message to a HAM operator in Gujarat. All telephone lines were out, so the HAM operator had to personally go and locate the parents. He then relayed the message to Sanjay who in turn sent it to Raina and she gave the good news to her very relieved friend.

"It just hit us that this could be a big thing. Soon it spread by word of mouth and people started calling and e-mailing me. I was receiving about 800 e-mail and calls -- 20 in a day," says Raina.

The requests got so huge that Raina had to make a spreadsheet in Excel, which she e-mailed her brother every evening. He in turn would contact the HAM operators and then periodically send updates to Raina. Sanjay and his friends then decided to set up an outpost in Gujarat. They piled into an SUV and reached Gujarat in two days. It was difficult reaching a number of places because of roadblocks set up by the army, but nothing could stop this determined group.

They concentrated on the Bhuj and Anjar areas, where they recruited a group of messengers who were sent out with a list of people to locate. When they did find somebody, the news would be given to a HAM operator who in turn would update the list on the computer, which would be e-mailed to Raina. "It was very very difficult locating people since entire streets were destroyed. But the team would speak to neighbors, and anybody else they could find. They also visited field hospitals and relief centers.

"They were out from morning to night. They really did all the work, I only relayed the messages," she says modestly. But the 10 HAM operators who were relaying the messages for them were in for a rude shock when the Rapid Action Force harassed them for not getting a permit to operate in a national disaster zone. It was another matter that the building with the office that issued the permits had collapsed in the earthquake.

The RAF refused to budge. The equipment of six HAM operators was confiscated and they were escorted out at gunpoint. "We have still not been able to get any verification about why this was done by the RAF. We filed a complaint with the government, but we don't expect anything from it. Till date, the confiscated equipment has not been returned," says Raina.

The team then decided to close down their HAM operation but came up with another idea. Cell phones were used to relay messages, which were then e-mailed to Raina in Washington DC. "Everybody says using HAM operators was a very unique idea. India might be a very poor country but where we don't have something we find other ways of dong things. We are very resourceful," chuckles Raina.

Back in Washington DC, Raina had her share of high drama. A woman who had seen Raina's name on the CNN message board asked if she could help locate a close relative who was with a group of 8 students from Ball State University. This group was in the Gujarat area.

Raina immediately dashed off a message to Sanjay in Hyderabad. She also sent a message to the US consulate in Mumbai alerting them that there might be some American citizens in the earthquake area. The next morning two agents came knocking on her door.

"I don't know if they were from the FBI but they had Department of State IDs and were at my door at 7 am. They asked me all sorts of questions and asked me for my ID. Basically, they told me that the US government would take care of its citizens and that I didn't have to look for them," said Raina. A short while after they left, Raina received an e-mail saying the Ball State University students had been located and were safe.

Meanwhile, with phone lines restored and other organizations doing their bit, Raina and her team have slowed down but not stopped. "We have still got 50 people missing on our list and we are looking for them. We are still getting requests from people. When we started we decided we would not turn anyone away and we wouldn't stop till we found everybody," she says.

Fortunately, Raina has had to convey the bad news of a casualty to only one family so far.

FBI agents and the RAF might not have fazed Raina, but her phone bills are giving her nightmares. "I am afraid to look! I hope the telephone department gives me a break! The bills must be very high. I had people calling me from all over the world and I was calling people back who didn't have computers," she says with a laugh.

Raina has had her share of poignant moments but her favorite story is the one about the grandmother in her eighties who was located in a temple in Mandvi. When the earthquake hit, she thought Lord Shiva was angry with her and she went directly to the temple where she had been staying for two days before she was found.

The people who asked to find her were in Malaysia. They did eventually make it to Mandvi, but it never occurred to the grandmother that she should call somebody. When Raina's team found her, they were not greeted with happiness but were instead admonished for their disheveled appearance. 'How can you come to the temple when your clothes are in disarray and your hair so disheveled?' she scolded them.

Then there is the person they were trying to locate in Bhuj. They couldn't find him at his address, neither were they able to get through to his cell phone. After almost six hours of trying, his cell phone was finally answered.

When the team told him his family from the US was looking for him, he insisted he had no family in the US. They then found out that the person they were talking to was called Rahul. He had stolen the cell phone from the person they were actually trying to locate. Rahul assured them that the phone's owner was doing fine when he had swiped his phone! "So what could I report? 'Your son is doing well, but his phone has been stolen'," laughs Raina.

After spending sleepless days and nights (she had to take the days off from her internship) living on coffee and hope, Raina now has the time to savor her time in the spotlight. Mysterious admirers have been leaving flowers for her outside her door and her father has been besieged by marriage proposals.

She is the youngest of seven children of a Kashmiri family that left Srinagar for Hyderabad. While her parents would like to see her married, Raina has other plans. She hopes to do her Ph D in marine biology and eventually go back to India ("That's home").

Meanwhile she continues to work with a website (www.growthcircle.com) set up by a couple of graduate students from Toronto and Michigan for relief work towards the Gujarat earthquake. She has helped raise money and would like to be involved in the rebuilding efforts. "We are thinking of lobbying for safer buildings, taking on the building mafia, building according to code..."

As for the ringing phone, it doesn't keep her awake any more, but those phone bills do.

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