‘Bazaar in Quetta before the earthquake of 1935’ (b/w photo)

‘Bazaar in Quetta before the earthquake of 1935’. Photograph, India, 1935. On 31 May 1935 an earthquake hit Quetta and the surrounding countryside in Baluchistan. It had a magnitude of 7.7 and somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 people died. Several British and Indian Army units took part in the efforts to rescue people from collapsed buildings, retrieve and bury corpses, assist refugees and prevent looting. From a photograph album of 270 photographs compiled by Sgt George Edward Davies, 2nd Battalion South Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Volunteers) depicting British Army life in India, 1935-1941. Davies was later killed on 1 Apr 1945 whilst serving in Burma, and is buried in Taukkyan War Cemetery.