Pakistan earthquake - Balakot, Bagh razed (100,000 feared dead in two cities)

Man this event is getting worse by the minute......Prayers to all....




Pakistan earthquake - Balakot, Bagh razed (100,000 feared dead in two cities)
The Nation (Pakistan) ^ | October 11, 2005 | Absar Alam



BALAKOT - The towns of Balakot in Hazara and Bagh in Azad Kashmir were razed to ground completely and more than 100,000 people are feared dead in these two cities only.

The stench of death hangs over the weaving rows of rubble that was once Balakot, a thriving tourist town, a must stopover for cheerful visitors enroute to Kaghan.

Saturday´s massive quake has turned the historic town of Syed Ahmed Shah´s martyrdom into a massive graveyard sprawling on both sides of the river Kunhar while the survivors with broken limbs and hearts mourn their loved ones who perished in thousands in Saturday´s earthquake.

With estimates of 60,000 or above deaths in this town alone, there is hardly a family that has not lost several of its members. At least 1,000 students buried under the rubble of their school buildings have yet to be recovered.

Our correspondent from Bagh said about 70,000 people are feared dead there as the town has been completely destroyed. Still trapped in the debris are hundreds of school children and residents.

All the communication and transport links of areas beyond Balakot have broken with the outside world and the inhabitants are virtually living in stone age under the open sky. There is no electricity, no telephone line working, no clean water, no food, no medical equipment to save lives, no medicines, no tents and no blankets.

´One, two, three, four´ fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. And then I stopped counting the bodies lying by the roadside some barely covered with old plastic sheets, rotten piece of clothes, or nothing.

The afternoon´s successful rescue of Eman, a nine-year-old girl who was trapped under the debris along with her 370 schoolmates 58 hours ago, was the only good news that gave volunteers hope to continue their struggle with hammers and shovels.

´There is still a teacher and her class students alive under the rubble but we are unable to retrieve them,´ a bearded volunteer, who was also involved in the recovery of Eman, said. Later, these 40 students were retrieved alive. Eman was one of those few students of Shaheen International School and College of Commerce and Information Technology who were retrieved alive.

But others were not as lucky. Muhammad Rafaqat, a 9th Grader, was missing too. His school satchel was recovered lying with a mound of bags.

I opened a copy of his homework. A boarder, Rafaqat lived in Ghazali Hostel. On a page he had written the daily menu that was served at breakfast, lunch and dinner at his hostel. On Saturday, he had taken Chai Paratha for breakfast (or Sehri) and would have taken Chawal Raita for dinner (or Iftar). But that night never came. On Monday afternoon when I was going through the pages of his copy, he was somewhere deep under the debris.

Lying near the school debris were books, satchels, shoes, crayons, copies, and pencils. A torn page of book ´Me any My computer´ flapped in the air near a blood-stained maroon jacket.

Besides me, on top of a caved roof, which once was home of a family, sat Dr Farid watching the ongoing rescue operation below. ´I am waiting for the body of my third son,´ Farid said in a weirdly cold tone when I asked what he was doing here.

Looking at my startled reaction, Farid, who is also Balakot correspondent for a daily Urdu newspaper, gave me a bitter smile and said; ´We are know use to it. I wept when I buried 7-year old Saad and 9-year old Ammad. How much can I grieve´ Everyone is grieving around here. Tears have stopped filling our eyes.´ He, his wife and one daughter miraculously survived as they moved out of their home within seconds.

In Government High School Balakot, there were 900 students, in Government Degree College for Girls there were 350, and in International Islamia Model School there were 600 kids on Saturday. From Government Degree College Hassa, near Balakot, 150 bodies were retrieved.

´I am waiting for the body of ninth member of our family,´ Iddi Amin, who works for an Islamabad-based marketing agency Enhancers Private, said. His sister, Al-Kinza, 23, was a teacher of Playgroup at the Shaheen School and was buried alive with the students and other teachers. ´I lost my father, my sister, her husband, my uncle, his wife, two sons of my elder uncle, one daughter-in-law, and daughter of my elder uncle,´ Amin said. He said 16 members of his in-laws family also perished.

´Last night I was digging the grave to bury one of my neighbourhood friend. Exhausted I asked an acquaintance to help me dig the grave. He refused saying ´why should I push the shovel´ I have lost too many of my loved-ones and have to bury them too.´

Yet, no official rescue team arrived to help rescue the survivors, treat injured, bury the dead, provide food, water, medicines, tents, and to control traffic.

Except Madni Market near the bridge and three signal towers erected by Mobilink, WLL, and Telenor, the bazar starting from the Shell patrol pump on Kaghan Road (the first milestone that you notice while entering Balakot) to Park Hotel built across the Kunhar, all shops, hotels, shopping malls, cafes, and houses on two kilometer stretch have been flattened completely.

Each of this concrete and steel structure turned into graveyard for those who could not run on to the streets within seconds after the deadly quake struck them. A huge number of Balakot residents are buried under the debris, no rescue effort has yet started and hope for survivors is diminishing.

In front of Jamia Masjid-I-Shuhda, near new bridge, a body was lying under a truck loaded with potatoes that had been flung upside down by the earthquake into what once would be Foto King Colour Lab and Studio. Hundreds of photo prints, potatoes, onions, pickle, vegetable oil, engine oil and blood oozing from bodies mixed with dust and charcoal all around.

Just few yards away, the earthquake that wreaked cracks in the ground at a number of places, had tossed two jeeps onto the riverbed. No one is sure of the passengers. Near Madni market, the lonely building in Balakot that survived the earthquake, another truck was thrown into a shop, two pick up vans nearby were lying on their side.

Around the Mazar of Syed Ahmed Shaheed, not a single structure is standing. And yet, thieves have emptied all ornaments from a jewelers destroyed shop in front of Syed Ahmed´s Mazar. By his grave were lying dead bodies in rows. These were left there in the open by the local rescuers who came in thousands from the adjoining areas to recover and bury the dead.

The huge Barelvi Jamia Masjid on the right bank of the river Kunhar near the old suspension bridge also collapsed. Now the worshippers were using the roof of the destroyed mosque to say their prayers. For ablution and drinking they were using the muddy river water that has been polluted after the earthquake.

The whole area is littered with concrete, electric wires, shoes, blood-soaked clothes, packets of yogurt, milk, spices, chillies, salt, grains, pulses, straw mats, iron rods, bricks, mud, household items, and plastic toys. It´s a mess that will take years, or perhaps decades, to clean up but the scars that this tragedy has left on the minds of people will never go.

´The rescue operation and the mobilisation of the military has been very slow,´ Lt General (Retd) Salahuddin Tirmazi told The Nation while sympathizing with enraged survivors who were abusing the government.

´Each of the 12 Balakot union councils, there are 15,000 to 20,000 registered voters and then they have kids and the people who have not registered themselves as voters. About 80 percent of them are unaccounted for,´ Tirmazi, who is a native of Kaghan and is an active politician now, said.

He, however, said the mobilisation of military was not an easy task as everybody would be busy in their routine work such as few units were busy in Wana and others were called in from Gujranawala.

´No one knows how many people are dead in the valleys where no one can reach,´ Tirmazi said.

Numerous interviews with survivors and the families members of the dead, and a glance from the top over Balakot Valley lying on both sides of Kunhar confirms what Tirmazi said.

Comprising 12 union councils, Balakot and Karlot, make what Balakot city is today. Both these areas have been totally razed to the ground. Four-storey buildings, post office, police station, civil hospital, Nadra office, offices of travel agents, PCOs, mosques, petrol pumps, and other government departments have reduced to a flattened bed of rocks.

A five-member French rescue team arrived in a helicopter Monday afternoon to help the civilian volunteers who have been recovering bodies, and alive victims from the rubble of schools, shops and residences.

A Japanese team has also set up its camp in Balakot but has not yet started its operation. The first Pakistani army convoy arrived in the outskirts of Balakot late afternoon and was busy setting up its camp. With evening falling fast, they are unlikely to launch any operation before Tuesday.

The students of University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar were the first who arrived in Balakot on Saturday afternoon with medicine, food, and water. They were joined by the students of Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Technology.

´When we arrived there was no one here, and there was no voice. What we saw were dead bodies and what we heard were the wailing of family members who lost their loved ones,´ said Bilal Riaz of GIK.

Roads are blocked with huge landslides. No one can go beyond Balakot. The road from Mansehra to Balakot opened on Monday morning but the massive rescue operation launched by the civilians using their own vehicles resulted into worst traffic jams and passengers; victims fleeing Balakot and adjoining areas and the rescue workers were stranded for hours despite the presence of military which, most of the time, stayed away from handling the traffic.

The volunteers who came from nearby districts did a commendable job by recovering and burying dozens of bodies. The supplies of food items, medicines, blankets, warm clothes and other edibles came from Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan and even from Nasirabad Balochistan.

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Last Edited by Phennommennonn on 09/23/2012 05:41 PM