25 years on, Kutch returns to quake-resistant ‘bhunga' structures

Twenty-five years ago on the morning of 26 January 2001, Gujarat was rocked by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake, its intensity touching “extreme” on the Mercalli intensity scale. With the epicentre near Chaubari village in Bhachau taluka of Kutch, the quake caused widespread destruction in the region. The National Institute of Disaster Management pegged casualties at 13,805, with more than 90% homes destroyed in Kutch. People still carry its scars within them. “I was a witness to the tragedy. There was no precedent to that kind of devastation in my living memory,” says Kiran Vaghela, an engineer and archaeologist, and a resident of Bhuj. “But what happened thereafter is important. The way Kutch rebuilt itself was truly inspiring.”

At the Bhujio Dungar, Bhuj, stands the Smritivan Earthquake Memorial, which came up in 2022. Designed by Ahmedabad-based architecture firm Vastushilpa Sangath, the memorial is a living breathing space. It’s complete with reservoirs and a Miyawaki forest with over 300,000 plants, alluding to the ideas of rebirth and regeneration that have taken hold in Kutch since 2001. The lasting impact of the earthquake can be seen in the way residents of Kutch have been thinking about architecture.

Before 2001, Bhuj, Rapar, Anjar and Bhachau were witnessing rampant construction, with hundreds of reinforced cement concrete (RCC) buildings coming up. Sadly, most of them didn’t survive the quake and were reduced to rubble within seconds. On the other hand, a survey revealed that the traditional round mud structures or bhungas had been able to withstand the severe jolts. The rehabilitation process would thus be incomplete without incorporation of this ageold wisdom.

In fact, it was another quake—the devastating 1819 one in the Rann of Kutch, which transformed the topography of the region by changing the course of the Indus—that led the locals to reimagine their mud huts. After that, instead of square or rectangular spaces, the Meghwals, an agropastoralist community based in north-western Kutch, started living in circular bhungas made with mud, cow dung and bamboo. These structures could not just withstand seismic jolts but also high velocity cyclonic winds. The houses were also resilient to extreme climatic conditions, remaining cool in the harsh desert summers and warmer in winter. Over time though, this traditional wisdom didn’t extend beyond the hamlets of the Meghwal community and the rest of Kutch gave into RCC construction.

The 2001 quake, however, brought a shift in perspective. “We tested why the structure of bhungas did not break in 2001. In a square or a rectangular structure, when the earth moves sideways, a crack develops in the corner. When that deepens, the walls fall and then the roof collapses. Whereas in a circular structure, the energy just keeps going round and round, and then slowly dissipates back into the ground,” says Sandeep Virmani, a Bhuj-based environmentalist and architect, who works with indigenous communities across India to revive traditional building crafts and ecological practices. He was part of the collective of not-forprofit organisations, Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan, formed in 1998 in response to a devastating cyclone in Gujarat. They continued the rehabilitation work after the 2001 earthquake as well.

The collective morphed into Hunnarshala in 2003 to focus on sustainable architecture, ecological restoration, and to support pastoralists and local artisans. “The late Dr A.S. Arya, who was the technical adviser to the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority at the time, was fascinated with the traditional knowledge prevalent in seismic zones, which minimises loss to life and property. So, we developed guidelines for bhunga architecture and the GSDMA published it,” says Virmani. “After that we saw a widespread adoption of this style in Kutch.” Master artisans from the Meghwal community worked with Hunnarshala architects, engineers and researchers to adapt the conical thatch roof to an octagonal tiled roof. “The women from the community helped develop stabilised earth paints and the architects helped each family place the bhungas on their stone plinths,” states a report by the foundation.

The Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS), an organisation started in 1989 to empower women and girls in the region, took the onus of building around 2,000 bhungas for 1,200 families in the Banni Pacham area to rehabilitate semi-nomadic tribes, who rear livestock and sell milk products. The new bhungas were raised on foundations of stone, and made from rammed earth or stabilised earth blocks. Some were made with stone and mud mortar with through-stones, which held the wall together in earthquakes. Just like the traditional setup, there was a community space between two bhungas, with a kitchen in the open. Since then, this effort has been studied by architecture students across the country. “The success of the project can be attributed to the community’s active participation in the entire recovery process, from decisionmaking to construction implementation,” states a 2020 report co-written by Shreyasha Hadawale, then a fourth-year student at Dr. D.Y. Patil College of Architecture, Pune. “It ignited confidence and pride in traditional bhunga typology.”

The project, completed in 2002, also caught international attention, with the United Nations Development Programme approaching KMVS and the Kutch collectorate to develop community-run resorts in bhunga style. This resulted in the Shaam-e-Sarhad, a village resort in Hodka, which provided a boost to the tourism industry in Kutch and helped restore livelihoods to an extent. “We got 12 artisans together, ranging from wood carvers and lacquer artists to thatch specialists. That culminated in a very interesting bhunga design,” says Virmani. Today, nearly all the homestays and resorts in Kutch are made in this style with some changes here and there. The Tent City, which comes up every year during the Rann Utsav, held between November and February, is filled with bhungas featuring modern amenities.

Lata Sachde, a resident of Bhuj and a member of KMVS, recalls the significant role that women played in the rehabilitation. Volunteers from the organisation visited the north-western parts of Kutch to understand the culture around the bhungas. “When we came back with the findings, women said they wanted these resilient mud houses but didn’t have enough time to regularly embellish them with lippan, or mud and mirror work. That increased their labour and took time away from embroidery,” says Sachdeva. So, a committee spearheaded by women convened to discuss how best to adapt the design.

The structures continue to evolve depending on the needs of the community. For instance, to reduce the time needed to replace dried grass on the thatched roof, many houses are shifting towards Mangalore tiles as an alternative. “The bhungas that were made back in 2001 are still standing. Women volunteers, who were monitoring the construction activity then, are still engaged with the neighbourhoods. Several craft collectives, featuring over 1,200 women, that have come up in the region, are housed within bhungas,” says Sachdeva. She also points out that unlike in other parts of the country where the youth from artisan communities are moving away from traditional wisdom, in Kutch that does not hold true. “They are carrying this knowledge forward in their own way,” she says.

Meanwhile, the Hunnarshala research team has been actively working in several parts of the Himalayas as well to document traditional earthquake-resilient architecture. “So far, we have documented 12 different styles of architecture made by traditional artisans with mud, bamboo and stone,” says Virmani. This is particularly significant given that the entire Himalayan arc has been upgraded to Zone VI, the highest seismic-hazard category by the Bureau of Indian Standards last year, showcasing extreme vulnerability to tectonic activity.

Back in Bhuj, the team has also been creating ways to connect traditional artisans with architects and engineers through the Karigarshala, which started in 2011 but became an independent initiative in 2021. “They have such wonderful traditional knowledge of not just making earthquake-safe but also lowcarbon buildings,” says Vaghela, who is the founding member of Karigarshala. So, this gratis course, spanning 18 months, is open to young artisans aged 18-25 to combine traditional earth technologies with a formal pedagogy and practical applications. Nearly 15 years back, the artisans had the opportunity to work in Abu Dhabi as part of a state project to restore old mud buildings. “Neither architects nor engineers are familiar with these traditional technologies. There is a big demand now for low carbon buildings, but there were no trained artisans available,” says Virmani. “Today, students from Karigarshala have worked with 50-60 architects from across the country. Hopefully, the people-centric rehabilitation and revitalisation in Kutch will inspire many others across the country.”

Continuing threats

Kutch falls in Seismic Zone V of the Bureau of Indian Standards seismic zonation map. The Institute of Seismological Research (ISR) conducted a conference last weekend, featuring international delegates, to further discuss intraplate earthquakes, such as the kind that struck Kutch 25 years ago. These are seismic events that occur within the interior of a tectonic plate far from the active boundaries where most earthquakes originate.

Santosh Kumar, directorin-charge of the ISR, Gandhinagar recalls that 25 years ago there was only one seismological station in Kutch/ Bhuj. As a result of this, the precise location and magnitude of the 2001 earthquake was not known immediately after its occurrence. Even ISR came about in 2003 after the earthquake. Today, there are 110 seismological stations in Gujarat, with near real-time data coming to the institute. “Much has changed since 2001. Before that, intraplate seismic activity was not well-understood. Over the past 25 years, more than a hundred scientific research papers have been published on this subject. Continuous seismicity monitoring and extensive strong ground motion studies have been carried out. These enable faster relief and rescue operations,” he says.

Bhuj is home to significant heritage structures such as Prag Mahal and Aina Mahal. In 2001, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) found that of the 250 buildings inspected in 56 cities, towns and villages in Kutch and Rajkot, 40% had either collapsed or were extensively damaged and 30% were damaged. Since then, there have been initiatives for heritage conservation in regions with high seismic activity. CEPT University’s Centre for Heritage Conservation (CHC), for instance, started the Bhuj Site School in Nagarkhana, Darbargarh in 2022 to understand both lived history and architecture of the region.