Uma is a young college student traveling to India to visit her parents. She is in love with a man named Ramon, a scientist. When the earthquake strikes, her arm is seriously wounded or broken. While she was waiting to obtain her visa, she was reading Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; this gives her the idea, later on, for each of them to tell a story to pass the time while they wait for rescue. It is ultimately this story telling that proves to be their salvation; without it, the group would have continued to bicker, use physical force against each other and succumb to stereotypes about gender, race, nationality and religion. Uma’s own story reveals that she is a very stable girl who once did something unpredictable and potentially dangerous, yet that experience allowed her to see at least one amazing thing in her life.

Cameron, an African American who is retired from a military career, immediately puts his survival training to use and assumes control after the earthquake. He is not afraid to use physical force to keep others from behaving foolishly, which is witnessed when he knocks Tariq unconscious in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. Although he is physically strong in many ways, Cameron’s asthma and dependence on an inhaler weakens him as the story continues.