These entries are from my independent self-funded project of late last year in the earthquake-hit regions of Pakistan. On October 8th 2005, at 8:50am (local Pakistan time), an earthquake of 7.6 magnitude hit the Northern areas of Pakistan.
I lived in a local camp, set up by a small local NGO, the Ansar Welfare Society. This camp was located in Bassian Village, just south of Balakot and north of Mansehra. This was the tent I stayed in. The camp was at full capacity with 200 adults and 100 children. It also included a medical clinic, Khanpoor Medical Clinic. Most of my work was in this camp and surrounding areas, including Balakot and areas along the Kanhar river. The green tent beside mine was the pharmacy, which housed all of the local and foreign donated medicines.
My telling of this international news focuses on the hope and humanity of the people living in this area and those that were directly impacted. This is in a region where there is no formal infrastructure for such disasters, such as ambulances, hospitals, firefighters, equipment to remove rubble, or any prior safety planning. However, somehow, the survivors and local people knew what to do and their communal safety-net was fully functioning. [This can be contrasted to another natural disaster that took place in a first world country just a few months prior.] I must also mention that I was received in this area with a great deal of love and appreciation. All of the persons I interacted with were most appreciative of the support from the international community.
This camp had Cuban and Malaysian medical teams working in it. The Malaysian doctors were usually in a team of 2 or 3, that rotated weekly from Malaysia, and the Malaysian government had rented a small house for them a few minutes down the main road. The Cuban government sent 2000 medical staff (most compared to all donating countries) to the region and created 30 hostpitals complete with emergency medical equipment for a period of 6 months. In this particular camp, there were 21 Cuban doctors living in the camp along with 7 nurses. The camp was also gaurded by Pakistani military 24hrs a day. This was usual for the smaller NGO camps. The military had also set up their own camps, which were generally larger and more formally organized.
As you can see from some of these photos, life went on as usual in the camp. Women were washing clothes, feeding children, cooking on open fires outside their tents, and children were running around playing. There were temporary schools set-up in these areas as well as schools run by the army. There were also classrooms set-up in some tents at the camp for volunteer teachers to work with the children. Much of this work was around addressing traumatization. Many of the children were orphans and in the care of a distant relative. The men were less visable in the day-to-day activity of the camp, many would go back to what was left of their homes/communities (if possible to get there and if they were able-bodied) to collect belongings or other things they could sell. There were also more women and children in most of the camps. Given the typical routines of the people in these particular communities, the earthquake hit when most women were outside of the home, children were already in school and men were still at home. As a result, many children died in school and many men died in their own beds. We visited a particular mass grave site of 500 highschool girls in Balakot.
The Khanpoor Medical clinic was open to all earthquake survivors and we averaged 400-500 patients per day. The most commoly dispensed medicines were for illneses resulting from living in the camps such as scabies, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, fever, cold, flu, infections of the throat, ear, and bladder/urinary tract. In these cases antibiotics for adults and children were a necessary drug. Many of the patients came with severe injuries from the quake such as broken limbs, requiring stitching and casting/recasting. The clinic also provided vitamins, supplements and ultrasounds (at hospital) for expecting mothers and sometimes, based on the stock available, contraceptives.
The clinic closed at sunset, around 5:00pm, as it was too dark after this time to fly helicopters or to travel. It was extremely cold without the sun, up to minus fourteen degree celcius. We used gas heaters in the tents while we were awake and sometimes electric heaters throughout the night. We did have electricity on the camp site, but due to periodic load-shedding, we were not able to rely on electrical source of heat.
Sometimes, during the sunset, the clinic doctors, nurses and local camp volunteers would go down the montain, about 1500 metres, to Kanhar river and Kanhar mountain range. In the far distances we could see the snowcapped mountains of the Himalayas.
This beauty was a high contrast to the work being done in the more populated and more devasated areas such as Balakot. We walked along the main Balakot road as it was too steep for vehicles. Balakot (seen in photos here) was the most destroyed region after the Oct 8th 2005 earthquake of 7.6 magnitude of rictor scale. With the aftershocks, lasting two months after the quake and totalling over 140, the areas became more and more unsafe for survivors. This combined with winter on its way, survivors living in camps with poor sanitation and decreasing hygiene maintenance, little access to showers and clean water, survivors were at further risk of infections, diseases, and death. Many survivors were given tents to set-up near their broken homes. Many survivors did not want to leave their land and go into a camp-site. Many stayed and digged for wood and metal to sell for money or food (as seen in one of these photos).
This first picture taken in Balakot, was the typical site in Balakot. Amongst the remains of what was a fully functioning and beautiful community, one would see a broken home, a couple of tents in which survivors were living next to a couple of graves. The few solid ruins of the homes indicated extravagant exterior designs borrowing from Chinese, Persian and European influences. The graves made here were considered a blessing as many were burried in mass graves. Many survivors were not able to identify the location of their deseased family members.
Working with the children survivors was a source of great learning. Their resilience in the face of this tragedy reminded me of the nature of the human spirit to flourish. Having burried the woman who raised me a week before my trip to this region and questioning my decision to continue with this project, the children taught me that it was some higher power that brought me back to the country in which I was raised, for my own healing journey. I am truly blessed to have been touched by these children and all the humanitarians that lead me to this path.
Most of my work in the camp was translation as the Cuban doctors spoke little English. All education in Cuba is in Spanish. The patients accessing the clinic spoke a variety of languages and dialiects, such as Urdu, Pashto, Sindhi and Balochi. The patients were sent to the Cuban hospital set up just a few walking minutes down the road for bloodwork, X-ray, and ultrasound. Patients that were not able to walk were sometimes brought to the clinic in wheelbarrows. The clinic was able to utilize a small van as an ambulance to transport patients, if possible to do so by road. However, residents living well into the mountains or at high altitudes could not escape their areas by road.
The children loved the camera and loved to pose.
This little girl (looking at the medications) was very shy. Her father mentioned that before the quake, she was very talkative. She hardly spoke a word as she waited with her father for their turn in the clinic. Sometimes patients waited for over 2hrs depending on how busy the clinic was that day.
As our helicopter landed on this tiny helipad, the children of this mountain area Bagh (where there is a large military base) came running out of the steep rocky edges. They were fascinated by planes and told us stories of different planes and people that have landed there. Ours was a Swiss helicopter donated to the Pakistani government and flown by two Italian pilots. It was being used by the military to transport food and supplies to areas that could not be reached by road. The donated helicopters that I saw from various countries, including Canada, were most importantly used to quickly and safely transport injured or sick residents to clinics or hospitals.
Despite the ugliness of death and destruction, the area was very beautiful as seen from the sky. As we travelled through the region via helicopter, I thought to myself that this landscape was one of the most breathtaking I had ever seen in my life.
This is the Kanhar river that runs parallel to Balakot Rd.
On the helicopter!
I am grateful to Maqbool Bhatti and the team at the Ansar Welfare Society for sharing their knowledge and space with me. Above all, I know that I can never repay the individuals I met along my journey who have forever changed my life.
For associated photos visit http://tahmenabokhari.blogspot.com/
http://www.pakquake2005.com/article.php?story=20061008200717579