On Republic Day 2001, as India watched the parade in Delhi, an Indian Air Force station in Kutch was rescuing its own.
No aircraft were being scrambled. No enemy formation had crossed the border. At Bhuj, officers and airmen were crawling into collapsed apartment blocks, cutting steel rods with hacksaw blades, listening for voices beneath concrete, and pulling out survivors with bare hands. Many of those trapped were their own colleagues, their wives and children, and their neighbours.
The story survives most vividly because Wing Commander R. D. Mathur, then Commanding Officer of No. 15 Squadron, the Flying Lances, recorded it in the squadron diary on 15 August 2001. It is a commanding officer’s personal account of what he had seen and lived through. That gives it a rare immediacy. It records acts of gallantry, but also confusion, exhaustion, anger, discipline, grief, and the slow return of order.
The occasion for Mathur’s writing was itself significant. Four men of No. 15 Squadron had been decorated for gallantry. Corporal Akhilesh Kumar Mishra, SEW, received the Kirti Chakra. Corporal Mohammed Javed, Radio Fitter, Corporal Sanjeev Kumar Arora, Instrument Fitter, and Leading Aircraftman Rajeev Bhardwaj, Engine Fitter, received the Shaurya Chakra. Mathur had witnessed their conduct in the ruins of Bhuj.
But the story was larger than one squadron. The gallantry citations of other airmen and officers show that, in those first days, personnel from across Air Force Station Bhuj and its lodger units became rescuers, stretcher-bearers, engineers, traffic controllers, recovery parties and relief organisers.
The first hour
No. 15 Squadron was based at Bhuj, though its aircraft had moved to Naliya on 5 January because of runway repairs. With a long weekend coming up, many officers and airmen had returned to Bhuj on the evening of 25 January to be with their families.
At about 0810 hours the next morning, the earthquake struck.
Mathur was at home. His first thought was that the geyser had burst. Within seconds, he realised it was an earthquake. He rushed out as masonry fell. Officers and families emerged from their houses in whatever they were wearing. The tremor lasted perhaps 40 seconds. When it stopped, dust rose over the station.
His first concern was for the children. The Kendriya Vidyalaya was a double-storeyed building. Parents were already rushing towards the Air Force School and KV, some barefoot, some in lungis or nightwear, many crying. At the Air Force School, Mathur saw his wife, Shipra, the Principal, marshalling children into the open ground. At the KV, the children were frightened but safe.
Only then did the scale of the disaster begin to register.
Some married quarters had collapsed. Families were trapped. Communications with outside agencies had failed. At the airmen and NCs(E) living-out quarters, Mathur saw bodies beneath the debris. Rescue had already begun, not with specialist equipment, but with airmen, NCs(E) and civilians digging with their bare hands until tools from the fire section and elsewhere could be brought in.
Within the first hour or so, eight or nine people were pulled out. Not all survived. Corporal Prajapati of No. 15 Squadron was trapped, but his injuries and smoke from a smouldering kitchen fire proved fatal.
Shivnagar
Around 1130 hours, Mathur was told that several buildings had collapsed at Shivnagar, a civilian housing colony a few kilometres from the Air Force camp where many airmen lived with their families. No rescue work had yet begun there. He went to the site and took charge.
The scene was devastating. Around ten multi-storey buildings had been damaged. Some had been flattened. One had split down the middle in a V-shape. Others had caved in floor by floor. An Air Force crane was available, but the lanes were too narrow and choked with debris for it to be of much use.
Mathur climbed onto the rubble, ordered silence, and had the crane engine switched off. Listening carefully, he heard faint cries from below. One voice was a woman’s. The other was a child’s.
LAC Bhardwaj, Cpl Choudhary and Cpl Pachauri began cutting through debris with pickaxes and hacksaw blades. The woman was located, pinned beneath a fallen wall. The child answered Mathur weakly with the word “Uncle”, but could not be located. With aftershocks continuing and a damaged building threatening to collapse over the rescuers, the men worked on. The woman was eventually pulled out. The child was never found.
From that point, the work did not stop for four days.
Corporal Akhilesh Kumar Mishra worked four days and nights with little rest. On 26 January, he pulled out a boy and three women from three different buildings in Shivnagar, then tunnelled through collapsed floors that night to rescue a father and child. On 27 January, he entered Vaibhav Laxmi Apartments through the top slab and worked down through three levels, almost 30 feet, to save Cpl Shah and his wife. He was credited with saving 19 lives.
Corporal Mohammed Javed began inside the camp, opening a passage with a hacksaw and crowbar to reach two surviving members of a family, then the wives of Cpl D. Singh and Sgt V. S. Yadav. He pulled out seven survivors at Vaibhav Laxmi on 26 January alone. On 29 January, he helped extricate the last survivor from Kaveri Complex, an infant. He was credited with saving 14 lives.
Corporal Sanjeev Kumar Arora cut a narrow passage at Vaibhav Laxmi to reach two couples, the Tripathis and the Roy Chowdharys, even as parts of the structure fell. He pulled out five more people from Gayatri Apartments on 27 January and three more from Kaveri on 28 and 29 January. He was credited with saving 14 lives.
Leading Aircraftman Rajeev Bhardwaj worked on four multi-storey complexes in Shivnagar on 26 January and rescued five women, two children and two men. Between 27 and 29 January, he helped rescue Sgt R. P. Sharma’s family and a teenage girl from Taxila Apartments, and recovered a child after six hours of work. He was credited with saving 16 lives.
By the evening of 26 January, Mathur estimated that at least 20 men, women and children had been rescued at Shivnagar alone.
The night of 26 January
Then came another report. The wife of Cpl Khan of 2201 Squadron had been pulled out and said there were more people alive in the lower floors of a collapsed building. Darkness was falling. Waiting until morning could mean losing them.
Squadron officers found a portable generator, electrical cable and a high-powered drill at the Airports Authority of India construction site. Airmen who had been working all day were told to eat and rest. Most refused.
Through that night, Cpls Mohammed Javed, Sanjeev Kumar Arora, Akhilesh Kumar Mishra and Anil, with LAC Rajeev Bhardwaj, stayed at the front of the work. Younger officers, including Fg Offrs Ganesh, Pandey, Upadhyay, Sachin Mehta, Srikant and Rao, kept vigil. Some entered the rubble alongside the airmen.
It was cold. Aftershocks continued. Past midnight, Sgt Idrisi’s daughter was rescued. Two hours later, Sgt Idrisi himself was pulled out. He reported that his wife, a civilian girl and possibly others were still alive inside.
The work was not confined to No. 15 Squadron’s party.
Sergeant Mahender Singh, a Radio Fitter posted at Bhuj since June 1998, had rushed to Shivnagar after the earthquake. He went under crumpled buildings, broken water tanks and falling structures to rescue the wife and daughter of the late Sgt Awasthi, the wife of Sgt Rajput, the wife of Cpl D. P. Singh and others trapped at different locations. He worked for five days with little rest and was credited with saving eight Air Force personnel and family members.
Corporal Suresh Chintalapati, posted at Bhuj since March 1999, went first to Ashapura Apartment in Shanti Nagar, a multi-storey building that had collapsed with airmen’s families and civilians inside. With improvised tools and bare hands, he made a passage through a small opening and rescued four children. He then moved to another building and pulled out a small child, the only surviving child of the late Cpl Thapa. In a third building, he rescued three civilians. He later moved to Shivnagar, where he worked four more days and helped locate and rescue about 14 more trapped people. He was credited with saving 24 Air Force personnel and civilians.
Leading Aircraftman Amar Kumar Bajpai of 2251 Squadron also went to Shivnagar, entering broken buildings and hanging structures while tremors continued. With no proper tools, he worked for five days with little rest. He was credited with rescuing nine people.
Leading Aircraftman Arvind Kumar began within the camp, making a passage through residential quarters and rescuing a girl. He moved to the collapsed DSC quarters and pulled out two more people. Over the next four days, he helped locate and rescue 12 trapped persons. To save a child trapped beneath a dead body, he had to cut the leg of the corpse. On 30 January, when hope of finding the living was fading, his perseverance helped pull out a girl child alive. He was credited with saving 20 Air Force personnel and civilians.
By 27 January, external help had begun to arrive: blankets, tents, food and satellite communication sets. An administrative control centre was set up near the Officers’ Mess. Relief aircraft began landing at Bhuj. Mathur urged that dependants be evacuated on aircraft returning empty, so that uniformed personnel could focus on rescue, relief and recovery.
At Shivnagar, Cpl Mishra and Fg Offrs Upadhyay and Sachin Mehta had worked through the night to reach a civilian girl named Avani, pinned beneath a concrete column. Amputation was considered, but rejected because blood loss before evacuation could have killed her.
Flying Officer Sachin Mehta volunteered for rescue work outside the station and worked day and night for the first 72 hours, pulling out no fewer than six survivors. Even after the fourth day, when the chances of finding people alive had receded, he continued with the extrication, identification and last rites of the dead.
A torch clenched in his mouth
That night produced one of the most remarkable episodes in Mathur’s account.
Cpl Saha of 2201 Squadron was pulled out after being buried for almost 36 hours. His son, who had been holding his hand, was dead. His wife was somewhere inside the collapsed structure, possibly still alive.
Cpl Mishra asked Saha to re-enter the rubble and identify where his wife might be. Saha could not do it. Mathur records honestly that he initially felt anger, but later understood. Saha had just emerged from a day and a half of darkness, entrapment and death. To go back into the same structure was more than he could face.
Mishra went in alone, with a torch clenched in his mouth.
He returned after about ten minutes. He had located the sounds but was uncertain whether cutting at a particular point might bring the load-bearing structure down. Mathur followed him in, feet first, past broken doors, utensils, dead bodies and compressed steel trunks, down through three collapsed levels. The air was suffocating, with the smell of leaking petrol and decomposing bodies. At one point, Mathur himself became stuck, his clothes caught in protrusions from a broken door.
He freed himself, advised Mishra where to work, and came out.
Mishra went back in with tools and an electric bulb on a cable. By early morning, he had pulled Cpl Saha’s wife out alive.
Foreign teams, and a squadron fall-in
By 28 January, foreign rescue teams had begun arriving with equipment and sniffer dogs. They drew media attention. Mathur’s assessment was measured. They were professional, but in the area where No. 15 Squadron had been working, they could facilitate only a few more rescues. Officers and airmen had done the essential work in the first, most critical hours with improvised tools.
That same morning, Mathur faced another task: restoring order to a squadron that had itself been shattered. Men and families were scattered across open areas and tents. Some had lost relatives. Others had lost their homes, their belongings, or both. Few were in uniform.
Using the public address system near the relief control centre, Mathur called a fall-in. Within minutes, the officers and many of the airmen had assembled. Accounting was done trade-wise. Lists of the dead, injured and missing were prepared. Men were detailed for rescue, administration, food distribution, tent pitching and work in the technical area.
It was the moment, Mathur wrote, when the squadron stopped being a casualty of the earthquake and became its responder.
The rest of the station
The station itself had to keep functioning.
Wing Commander Vinod Rangabhashyam, Chief Operations Officer, set up an Operational Control Centre on the tarmac and ran it round the clock through darkness and broken communications, handling more than 1,000 relief aircraft over the next 25 days. He received the Vayu Sena Medal.
Squadron Leader Ichettira Iyappa Kuttappa of No. 15 Squadron helped collect implements and break through debris in the first hours despite injury, then assisted the COO with the heavy air traffic. His Vayu Sena Medal citation was for a separate MiG-21 recovery on 21 April 2001, but also records his earthquake work.
Wing Commander Amrit Lal Patel, Chief Engineering Officer, had lost his house and seen his aged mother seriously injured. He nevertheless set up alternate servicing facilities in tents, restored aircraft servicing, and re-established communications and airfield lighting for relief flying. He received the Vishisht Seva Medal, as did Wing Commander Gurpreet Singh Sandhu of the Military Hospital for the medical effort.
From rescue to recovery
On 29 January, the work began shifting from rescue to recovery. Sanitation was becoming a serious problem. More bodies were being found than survivors. The dead had to be recovered, identified, photographed and disposed of. Fg Offrs Virdi and Upadhyay volunteered for this duty, with squadron airmen.
There were still moments of life amid the recovery. LAC Bhardwaj, Cpl Sushil, LAC Prasad, Cpl Sahoo, LAC Sahoo and Cpl Arora rescued an infant girl, less than a year old, who had survived for three days between the bodies of her dead parents.
Sgt Roy Chowdhary, presumed dead, was found alive in the rubble of another building, badly injured. Sqn Ldr Samyal brought the news to Mathur, and they took Mrs Roy Chowdhary to see her husband.
By early February, families were being moved out of Bhuj. Offices were set up in tents. The squadron prepared list after list for higher headquarters. Personal belongings had to be recovered from unsafe buildings.
The toll on No. 15 Squadron was severe. Eight airmen and 16 family members had died. Nineteen airmen and dependants were seriously injured and remained in hospital.
At station level, Group Captain S. S. Dhanda had been the Station Commander when the earthquake struck and was present through the first critical days. The change of command, due on 5 February, went ahead as scheduled. Group Captain Mohit Kumar took over Air Force Station Bhuj barely a week after the earthquake.
He led the rehabilitation of the station and surrounding areas, and coordinated relief and rescue efforts with civil agencies and the Army. He ensured the airbase remained available for relief aircraft and casualty evacuation. He was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal.
The wider operational burden shifted to Naliya. Air Commodore Madhusudan Banerjee, VSM, Station Commander at Naliya, later received the Vayu Sena Medal. After Bhuj could no longer support normal operations, Naliya bore the additional load of a fighter squadron for over a year. The station sustained the task, maintained morale and later managed further operational pressures during Operation Parakram.
Back in the air
For No. 15 Squadron, service life resumed with brutal speed.
On 5 February, Mathur was informed that the squadron was to resume flying from Naliya the next day, and that he was to fly personally. He explained that many airmen were on leave, while others were still trying to recover belongings and secure what remained of their homes. The order stood.
Mathur saw his wife and daughters off in an IL-76 at about 0400 hours on 6 February. The aircraft later had a narrow escape on approach to Agra, striking trees and hut tops short of the runway before climbing away and landing safely.
Later that morning, exhausted and short of drivers, Mathur drove himself to Naliya.
That afternoon and evening, he flew three sorties.
After nearly twelve days of earthquake, rescue, death, administration, family evacuation and almost no sleep, the commanding officer of the Flying Lances was back in the air.
Over the next few weeks, the squadron rebuilt. Families were accommodated elsewhere. Children’s schooling became an urgent concern. Airmen who had lost family members or all their belongings were eventually posted out. The operational part of the squadron remained at Naliya. Bhuj continued as the parent base and accounting unit. Offices were housed in tents and blast pens. Strong winds, and later rain, added to the difficulty.
Despite this, No. 15 Squadron went on to win top honours in the South Western Air Command inter-squadron air-to-ground armament meet, Eklavya 2001.
Gallantry in the rubble
Mathur’s diary records the story from the vantage point of a squadron commander. The citations show what was happening around him, in other units, at station headquarters, in operations, engineering, medical support, relief flying and at the receiving base at Naliya.
Together, they show an Air Force station which, for several days, had to rescue its own people, recover its dead, account for its personnel, restore essential services, receive relief aircraft, evacuate families and then return to operations.
For Air Force Station Bhuj, 26 January 2001 was not remembered for a parade or a ceremony. It was the day its personnel were tested, without warning, in the ruins of their own station and the homes of their own men.
Sources: No. 15 Squadron diary entry recorded by Wing Commander R. D. Mathur on 15 August 2001, together with gallantry and service-award citations relating to the rescue, relief and recovery effort at Bhuj.
An earlier version of this account was first shared on X on 10 May 2026. It has been edited and preserved here as part of the IAFHistory archive.
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