Essay on “I Experience an Earthquake” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

I Experience an Earthquake

Outline: Introduction – my strange experience – we rushed out – the havoc caused by the earthquake – man’s control over nature is incomplete.

Who can forget what happened in the small hours of the 30th September 1993? On the previous day I had gone to bed, expecting tomorrow to be like the so many tomorrows that had followed one another in weary succession. But the day, which dawned on 30th September 1993 proved to be different and brought to me a new and horrible experience. I was suddenly awakened at about 4 a.m. by a strange experience which I did not understand at first. I was aware that its main ingredients were a peculiar movement and a peculiar sound. I was rocked for a few seconds. as though I was in a cradle. I heard strange sounds in which I could identify the tinkling of pots, the rattling of windows, and certain muffled rumbling noise issuing from the earth. After a few moments I realized, to my horror, that it was the earthquake.

Others too in my house and locality must have realized it at the same time or a little earlier, as we all sprang up from our beds in a trice and rushed out of our houses, carrying sleeping babes and flabbergasted children. The tremor of the earth had ceased; yet we stood in the open for an hour, dreading another tremor. There was nip in the air that early morning, and the electric lights had gone off. People stood in darkness, talking about the earthquake and praying to God that it might not be repeated.

The tremors of the earth caused no damage in Mumbai. For several hours next morning we thought, with gratitude to Nature, that it had been, on the whole, harmless. But at about noon, news came that the earthquake had played havoc in Latur. All the houses in parts of Latur had been razed to the ground and hundreds of human lives lost.

The destruction wrought by the earthquake at Latur proved the helplessness of man in the face of an unexpected natural calamity. It shows how incomplete is man’s vaunted control over the forces of Nature. He has much to achieve yet in this respect. Is it not a pity that he is frittering away his resources and energies in petty animosities, squabbles and wars?

Difficult Words:Small hours-early hours. ingredients-elements. muffled -subdued, low. flabbergasted – bewildered, amazed. tremor – trembling. razed -destroyed, leveled to the ground. wrought – worked, caused. vaunted – boasted. frittering – wasting.