Quake town determined to rebuild

Hundreds of children in the small town of Chinari in the Jelhum Valley, 100 km northeast of the capital, Islamabad, were killed when the sheer force of the 8 October earthquake sent the town tumbling into the valley below. All that is left of the town are landslides and huge mounds of rubble that slipped down the mountain. The devastation here was brutal and the ruins are dramatic: homes sliced in half now balance on sheer ledges with their skeletal facades wobbling when trucks rumble past. The exact number of dead is not known and probably never will be as so many victims were maimed beyond recognition and were hastily buried in mass graves for fear of disease. All the schools were destroyed, killing over half the children in them. Although a small town, Chinari was the commercial hub for dozens of villages and hamlets scattered around it, packed with teahouses, shops and a thriving bazaar. But after the earthquake, like the rest of the stricken region of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the town was plunged into turmoil. There was no electricity for five weeks and although it has only just been restored, it is sporadic. There was also no water for weeks and the survivors were forced to use the valley’s river. The result was an onslaught of illness. “There were no latrines either, so the river was full of bacteria. The most pressing need in Chinari was water,” said Junko Shiroko a doctor with the Japanese Red Cross Society, working in the area. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), one of only a handful of international agencies working in Chinari, acted fast and in cooperation with the Pakistani army and local volunteers, has installed four bladder tanks each holding 10,000 litres of water. The work took two weeks to complete and consists of a 60m pipe that now runs from the riverbed up to the town. After chlorination and filtering, the water is fed to one of the tanks, situated in Chinari’s field hospital run by the Japanese Red Cross Society. A pipe that leads from the spring down to the main road, which was disconnected in several places by the quake, was also repaired. The water is now serving the hospital, as well as some 5,000 residents and about 30,000 people in surrounding villages. "The next stage of the project will involve expanding the distribution network," said Alain Oppliger, ICRC’s water and sanitation coordinator. "As before, we will involve the local community at every stage. We were overwhelmed by offers of help when we started the work, and now that the water is back, local people will also help with the maintenance of the pumps and other tasks,” he said. There are two doctors, two nurses and two midwives at the Japanese field hospital and they attend to some 50 patients a day, although they anticipate that the number will rise when they extend their opening hours. Known as a ‘basic health unit’, it has outpatient facilities and doctors can perform minor surgery. Patients with more serious illnesses are evacuated to Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir and the focus of regional aid efforts. With a female doctor and nurses on hand, unlike many other field hospitals, there has been no problem in treating female patients. “The main problems are communicable diseases, like diarrhoea,” said Junko, “But no outbreaks. Injuries are now indirectly related to the earthquake,” she said, more than six weeks after the quake. A week ago a pregnant patient arrived at the hospital in the evening, having been carried for five hours across the mountainous terrain by male relatives. “She had a miscarriage and because of the earthquake she could not come by road,” said Junko. As with all the survivors in the region, a major concern now is the encroaching cold. “I’m afraid because it’s getting colder they’ll be more respiratory patients,” said Shiroko. The ICRC is also distributing tarpaulins and blankets, targeting 200,000 people by air and by road throughout the earthquake-affected region of Kashmir. “You can get far more tarpaulins in a helicopter than tents, and also people have been building their own shelters and huts out of corrugated iron,” said Jessica Barry, a communications delegate for the ICRC. “Then at least you can make it waterproof by putting tarpaulin over it,” Barry said. But there are signs that the town that slipped away is coming back to life. Three schools are now running out of tents provided by the military. Small stalls have opened among the ruins selling wares that could be salvaged from the earthquake, from plastic kitchen pots to winter socks. The local barber’s shop has also opened for business and there is a queue for a short back and sides. There is now even a local teashop made from salvaged pieces of wood and tarpaulin donated by the ICRC. Morale is rising. The teashop is filled with families sipping the thick, milky local brew. “I think Chinari will resemble what it was before,” said 23-year-old Sughra Abbasi, who was a teacher in one of Chinari’s schools. A total of 200 children from Sughra’s school were killed, including two teachers. Sughra lives in a village a 45-minute walk away from Chinari. She treks to Chinari every day where she works as a translator for the ICRC. “I’ve lost so many members of my family. My whole village is gone,” Sughra said. Sughra shares two tents with three other families. “It’s difficult. It’s freezing at night,” she said. “But I can face everything.”