Bangalore: One of the most startling images from the recent earthquake in China was that of a new bride and groom among the dead.

The 100-year-old church, where they had gathered with their guests, collapsed in front of their eyes. They were lucky survivors who will probably tell this story many times even as they move towards new beginnings.

Though I have read of earthquakes and seen numerous pictures, I had never met a survivor until now.

Few of us know of the earthquake that shook Quetta (now in Pakistan) on 31 May 1935. The website of the Queen's Royal Regiment (http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk) reveals a startling story about an entire battalion of this regiment stumbling and falling unexpectedly as they marched along one of the main roads of Quetta.

One soldier recollects seeing a fissure in the ground opening up and slowly closing again. When the soldiers reached the barracks, they found the ammunition depot in ruins. The earthquake that had hit Quetta was 7.5 on the Richter scale.

That night at Quetta, a young boy woke to his mother's shrieks. It was pitch dark and impossible to see what was happening. He couldn't move. A wall of their hut had collapsed and he and his brother were trapped. The poles of the thatch had held well, so both survived. The neighbours had patiently cut off the sides of their string cots and dragged the boys out. Their cow was not so lucky, buried under the rubble; she had broken her legs and died a painful death.

The aftershocks continued. But the survivors had to live and the question was: what would they eat? There was a common tandoor outside but all the flour was stored in huge drums inside the houses, now reduced to a heap of bricks. The women decided to take the risk of entering the ruins and bringing out some atta. So rotis were made and the children fed.

I had never expected to meet someone who had survived Quetta where the official death toll was more than 40,000. So it gives me gooseflesh to hear how the children wandered into the town and found to their horror dead bodies hanging out of the first floors of shattered buildings.

Everyone had lost someone close; the town too stunned to mourn. People scrambled around trying to rescue friends and relatives who were trapped, or dead. But then children often find something to look forward to, even in the midst of ruins. This boy's most vivid memory is of finding a one paisa coin and then going with his friend to the corner shop. The shop was demolished, and they were certain that a veritable loot of scattered lozenges awaited them. They brought back a bottleful. Three days later the soldiers arrived and evacuated the families to camps a little away from the city, where the days were cheerless. 'I remember wishing that we could all become birds and fly away from there,' he recalls.

This survival story came as an unexpected revelation in the course of an oral history interview I was conducting with Professor Yash Pal who currently heads the UGC/AICTE review committee.

To all of us who grew up with black and white television in India, Yash Pal's was the face of science. I can still recall the excitement of watching Turning Point. The professor is eighty-two, but in the twinkle in his eyes I see the nine-year-old very clearly. Quetta, I guess, was a turning point for him, marking a new journey into science and education.