Kutch had been reeling in drought for the last two years. Now it got a 'bonus' in the form of an earthquake, as the locals put it. On January 26, 2001, the earthquake struck, taking down all communication lines. News about the extent of the damage travelled by road away from the epicentre. The survivors quickly realised that the destroyed city could not cope with the casualties. They started to evacuate in every available moving vehicle, carrying the injured and abandoning the immobile and the buried.