ABSTRACT
On January 26, 2001, his mother was making tea in the kitchen and his father and a cousin were chatting, waiting for the morning tea. Suddenly, the building started shaking violently, the tea kettle fell to the floor, and it dawned on his parents that they were experiencing an earthquake. They told his cousin to run out of the apartment building, while they sat down on the floor and began to pray. Because of their age and difficulty with walking, they were unable to rush down the stairs. The Indian culture fosters interdependency and is sociocentric rather than egocentric. Individuality and privacy are not encouraged, and family identity, sharing, and lack of boundaries are valued. The federal and state governments began to organize efforts to deal with the disaster. Many nongovernmental organizations, industrial corporations, religious organizations, and political parties joined in these efforts, but there was little coordination among them.
