Housing reconstruction in post-earthquake Gujarat

There is a growing body of literature concerned with the advantages and risks of different approaches to postdisaster housing reconstruction. This paper aims to contribute to this discussion through an exploration of local perceptions of housing reconstruction in the aftermath of the earthquake that hit Gujarat in India on 26 January 2001. The earthquake was India’s most severe natural disaster for almost 300 years. At least 20,000 people were killed and over 167,000 severely injured. An estimated 344,000 houses were destroyed, and over a million damaged. More than 7,600 villages and towns were damaged, and over 300 villages flattened; hospitals, health centres, schools and water and irrigation systems collapsed. Although 21 of Gujarat’s 25 districts sustained some level of damage, over 90% of deaths and an estimated 85% of assets lost were in Kachch, the state’s largest, and also one of its poorest, districts.