Trying to stay alive in post-quake rubble

Four days after the quake that destroyed their lives, Raheema Bibi, 25, sits on a pile of rubble in the wrecked town of Battagram, some 200 km north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Close to her, she holds her infant daughter, Maryam, and two-year-old son, Abdullah. Another son, Wali, five, lies somewhere under the mountainous piles of rock, rubble and twisted steel that can be seen for literally miles around. But Raheema has no time to mourn her first-born. Her only concern is to keep her surviving children alive. Both were uninjured in the quake – but for four days, no food has reached Battagram; there is no water, no medicine and no tents to provide shelter from the bitterly cold winds that lash the area all through the night. The earthquake has destroyed more than 80 percent of structures and buildings in parts of northern Pakistan, and strong aftershocks are threatening buildings already damaged by the initial earthquake. Many cities and villages in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the most affected areas, have been wiped out. “We have nothing to eat. I have tried to filter filthy water through my headscarf to give the children. Now my son is sick with diarrhoea and there is literally no food for anyone. Not a morsel has passed our lips since Saturday except for a few biscuits my husband brought us from somewhere,” Raheema said on Wednesday. Her husband, Alim Khan, has been attempting to reach areas south of Battagram, including Battal and Chattar, to try and collect the relief goods that have reached some villages. But frenzied chaos in those locations on Tuesday prevented him from collecting any food, with desperate people snatching bags of flour, rice and milk from trucks the moment they entered the area. Trucks have been unable to move further northwards towards Battagram and the dozens of flattened villages scattered through the devastated hills of the Battagram and Bishim districts. Some, such as Kangwal village, a short distance from Battagram, have been wiped out entirely. “The village has vanished. There are no survivors. Maybe one or two who were left alive have made it to Battagram or somewhere else, but there is no one alive here,” Naseer Jan, from the neighbouring Alai-Bani area, told IRIN. More than four million people are affected, of whom one million are in acute need of assistance and two million homeless. The United Nations launched a Flash Appeal for approximately US $272 million for Pakistan. The appeal aims at life-saving and early recovery activities for a six-month emergency phase. The true scale of the damage in the remote Alai-Bani area, accessed only through a narrow, winding road, is still unclear. Some areas, between Tuo Hul and Kachal Hal villages, are reportedly still cut off due to rockslides blocking the roads leading to them. Hundreds are feared dead across the area. Bodies lie under heaps of rubble and the terrible stench of death wafts up from the ruins scattered everywhere. Relief workers or goods have still to get to the area. “We had hoped some trucks would get here on Tuesday as the roads are now open. But they were stopped and emptied by desperate people in the Battal area south from here,” Nisar Tanoli, the Battagram district police officer, explained. Battagram is one of the worst hit areas in the country. The exact number of lives lost remains uncertain, but police believe over 800 have died from a population of 325,000. Virtually every building in the area has been damaged and the entire population is living under makeshift tents, clumsily rigged from pieces of plastic and cloth, or out in the open. “There are no plastic sheets available, no warm clothes, no food, no medicines, no water,” Sajjid Gul, the district coordination officer, said. Gul, like all senior officials based in the quake-hit area, has slept under a narrow strip of plastic for three nights. The administrators carry out their work, trying desperately to calm frantic, angry people, sitting on a heap of stone atop which a broken chair perches. Even in cases where damaged buildings still stand, such as the houses of senior officers, people are too scared to enter them. The district hospital at Battagram has almost completely caved in and the district mayor, Ehsanullah Khan, has since been attempting to organise basic medical aid for the hundreds injured across the area. “We can’t manage. Look at this. All our supplies are buried. We have no drugs, no bandages, no splints,” Khan said, while pointing to people lying under makeshift tents, some on strips of cloth spread out on the floor. Many suffer orthopaedic injuries, with loud moans and cries pointing to the plight of people. “We know the situation in Battagram is not good. We are trying to move relief goods up there,” French relief worker, Janette Renaud, told IRIN in Battal, where the French team is based. A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Islamabad also stated they had received reports from the area and were hoping to move into the area, while the situation on the ground was desperate, with disease beginning to take hold, chaos delaying relief and desperate people searching for roots or grass that they could feed crying children. “It is obvious that many months of effort will be required before any normalcy can be restored and the deep physical, emotional and psychological trauma of the thousands of people affected by the worst natural disaster in the region for over a century even partially patched over to allow the long process of healing to start,” the spokesperson added.