PAKISTAN: Chaos Prevails in Lost Paradise

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Muddassir Rizvi

BALAKOT, Oct 16 2005 (IPS) - Finally spotting a truck laden with relief material, on the weekend after the Oct 8 temblor laid waste this alpine paradise, Mohammed Nazir rushed to get hold of anything that might be flung his way.

But Nazir, a shopkeeper, was elbowed aside by hundreds of cold, hungry, sick and injured villagers, also waiting for relief along the Karakorum Highway, a five hour drive north of Islamabad.

When push turned to assault, the truck, carrying an assortment of randomly collected items, picked up speed and drove away and the last thing Nazir heard was someone yelling from top of the truck: ”We cant distribute anything to people who assault us – you people don’t deserve anything.”

Such scenes were repeated all over the mountain tracts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and adjoining Pakistan administered Kashmir – territories famed the world over for their pine forests, snow-capped peaks and clear mountain streams, now strewn with heaps of brick and concrete rubble that once were homes.

”My son and two daughters survived the earthquake but I fear they are going to die of hunger,” said Nazir who lost his wife and three other daughters in the rubble that the town of Jeeboorhee was reduced to by the worst earthquake in Pakistan’s history.

Nazir was working at his shop in Jeebhoorhee, tucked away in the Siren Valley (also called Booghar Mung Valley), some 25 km off the Karakorum Highway, when the earth started to shake. He managed to come out of the shop moments before it all came crashing down.

”I thought doomsday had comeàthe shaking of the earth, the indescribable sound from underground, the cries and panic, it sure looked like the last day had come,” said Nazir looking blankly in the direction of where his home used to be.

Measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale the quake left at least 40,000 people dead, 60,000 injured and 2.5 million homeless – though the toll is expected to rise. Almost all schools and hospitals in the affected region have been razed to the ground and road networks rendered unserviceable.

” Entire villages have been wiped off the face of the earth. The final dead count will be much higher as we reach higher mountain valleys,” said an army officer supervising the distribution of relief in Buttal, another valley off the Karakorum Highway..

According to volunteers at the Pattan Development Organization, a non-government organization (NGO) which is running a tented village in Balakot, a town along the Kunhar River that was completely razed, the earthquake exposed the poor administration in the area.

”The state was missing in most affected areas for almost a week. Nobody seemed to be responsible for the relief effort mounted by local people and NGOs, local and international NGOs,” said Zahid Iqbal, who is supervising the camp in Balakot, a six- hour drive to the north of Islamabad.

”Most aid is concentrated in bigger and accessible pockets of population. People are hungry, wet and sick on mountain terraces, but nobody is reaching them. The government must immediately take central position and coordinate the relief effort before winter strikes and snow restrains the ability to maneuver,” Iqbal said pointing to mountains already snow-capped.

Those who managed to come down the dangerous mountain slopes to get relief in rainy, hostile weather brought with them hair-raising tales of people injured and dying for want of food and shelter.

”My sister died on the third day after remaining half buried under the debris. I saw her dying, but couldn’t help her. My younger brother is lying there with his arms and legs broken and maggots in his wounds,” said Salim Shah, who lost his mother, wife and three children as their house collapsed and was then buried under the falling debris of other houses higher up the mountain slope.

Shah survived only because he had left home to go to Balakot town moments before the earthquake struck but suffered injuries from falling rocks.

”Please ask them (government) to come and help us. My children haven’t had anything to eat in days, we have run out of whatever food I could collect,” said Sughran sitting tearfully beside the debris of her flattened home.

With three young children, all under five, she cannot leave as her fallen home is at least five kilometers from Balakot and she is also nursing a game shoulder dislocated from desperately trying to pull her mother and sister out from under the debris.

There are many like Sughran who cannot decide what is best – stay put and wait for relief that may not come for days yet or leave young children and injured relatives behind and go out to towns where help may or not be available.

On Sunday, the trickle of desperate villagers trekking down the mountain slopes to devastated Balakot in search of shelter was beginning to turn into a flood and adding to the pressure on the already homeless urban population and the strain on aid workers.

”Thousands of people are stranded up on the mountains. It is so difficult to locate them as the population is scattered all over and the impact of the earthquake was massive,” said a worker at the health office in Mansehra district.

Some NGOs have begun reconnaissance operations on foot to locate stranded people. ”We have located as many as three clusters of population who have been out of the relief loop for the entire week. We have asked officials in Balakot to take immediate steps to rescue almost 110 stranded people there,” Benjamin Barkat, a doctor and volunteer with a local NGO, said.

While people in Balakot began to receive rations of food, drinking water and some medical care on Sunday, winter rains continued to torment thousands of people forced to sleep out in the open because 90 percent of the town’s buildings have collapsed.

Such is the demand for cover that even toy tents, and colourful marquees used for weddings and plain plastic sheeting are being pressed into service although the flimsier ones are quickly blown away or torn by the high winds.

Maj. Gen. Noor Hussain, in charge of the military relief effort in Mansehra, confirmed that tents were desperately needed. ”They are virtually the only item needed right now,” he said. ”Without them we can do nothing to protect people. The real need in this whole area is to set up tent villages and get people under them.”

Hussain confirmed that relief has finally reached the Jeebhoorie Valley but added: ”there are no tents and people are desperate for shelter in pouring rain.”

Relief officials said, more than a week after the earthquake struck only half the four million survivors estimated to be badly affected, have been reached.

”Looking at what we’ve done and what others have over the past few days, I would say we are somewhere halfway. But that’s a really rough estimate.” Keith Ursel, head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) operation in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan administered Kashmir said on the weekend.

It was only by Friday that the WFP could begin expanding its food distribution activity to mountain villages in the area around Muzaffarabad, partly because operations were hampered by damaged roads with many areas still accessible only by air.

Trucks loaded with high-energy biscuits were sent in several directions from Muzaffarabad in an effort to reach as many people as possible in villages that have received little or no assistance, the WFP said.

Donated items, particularly food and warm clothing, continued to pour in but ”most of the distributions are reaching only main villages and towns located near major roads which are open,” Ursel said.

”During the tsunami, we accessed people mostly by ship and by landing aircraft, but here the scene is different. In many ways, this is more difficult,” the WFP official said.

As in Balakot, most of the buildings in Muzaffarabad have been destroyed, forcing people to lie in the open with insufficient warm clothing and blankets to go around.

Rob Holden, head of the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team in Muzaffarabad was quoted saying: ”Roads are still not open and many of the outlying areas are still inaccessible. Shelter is the most immediate need – winterised and water-proof tents.”