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Ahmedabad-Kandla highway badly damaged

The earthquake in the Kutch region of north Gujarat has torn apart several stretches of the National Highway number four with cracks as big as eight by 20 feet.

The 400-km highway from Ahmedabad to Kandla is badly damaged with the military trying to restore traffic with temporary repair.

The Surajbari bridge, the only link to Kandla, has been repaired but still has large cracks and policemen keep a strict vigil on the traffic inflow.

Heavy vehicles like buses and trucks are not allowed to pass through simultaneously and the volunteers maintain a one way traffic flow in an alternate manner.

The quake has not spared even a single structure on the highway. Once sparkling hotels and restaurants have been reduced to dust.

The administration has not yet taken up relief work in these far flung areas nor have there been efforts to extricate the possibly-trapped people.

Several outlets of oil companies, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and IBP have been destroyed but there are no reports of any damage to the underground storage tanks for petrol and diesel.

The famous salt industrial area, adjacent to the NH-4 near Bhachau, has been completely wiped out.

Complexes of well-known salt companies like Indo Brands, Well Brands, Satyam, Western India and Ankur Salt Company Ltd have vanished with scores of unorganised labourers from Orissa, Kerala and Karnataka feared dead under the debris.

The NH-4 Ahmedabad-Kandla stretch is now a long line of vehicles full of relief materials, headed towards Bhuj, while vehicles with women, children and men, packed like sardines, drive away from the devastated region towards safer places.

PTI

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