Muzaffarabad and the struggle to survive

It started with a rumble, than a roar, and ended in utter devastation. But for residents of Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the devastating quake of 8 October will be etched in their minds forever. “I cannot describe it. It was like the end of the world,” Asaf Khan said, recalling in fervent detail how the walls of his simple, two-room house toppled in around him. While he and his family of five may have survived Pakistan’s deadliest quake in 100 years, it remains unclear whether they will survive its aftermath. Living in the open with winter fast approaching, he now joins an estimated 3 million Pakistanis rendered homeless by the disaster; a quake that took 53,000 lives, but now threatens to kill double that number. “I’ve got no job, no money and no tent. What am I supposed to do?” the 30-year-old day labourer appealed. “Who is supposed to help us?” That’s a good question and one repeatedly being asked by residents of the city – particularly towards the international agencies that were quick to the scene but have yet to provide the full assistance survivors so desperately need. But they too are struggling with the sheer magnitude of the crisis and the logistic challenges of what is proving to be one of the largest relief efforts of our time - not to mention an acute lack of financial resources and a dearth of reliable information.

Traffic has resumed on the streets of Muzaffarabad

Although thousands of Muzaffarabad’s 100,000 inhabitants were killed by the quake, three weeks on the exact death toll remains unknown. Yet, still burying their dead, few in the city, nestled at the confluence of the Jhelum and the Neelum rivers, have time to worry about the numbers, much less contemplate the future or even think about the task of rebuilding. Instead they concentrate on the immediate task of survival and how they will provide for their families. “We were poor before. How much can we possibly bear?” one mother asked, her face darkened by yet another sleepless night lying awake, cold and hungry with her children. “Each day I wonder how my children and I will eat,” another added. While some shops have reopened and traffic has resumed, crossing over the Quaid Azam Bridge from the south the devastation is inescapable. To the left, the Sugum Hotel, once catering to the city’s flourishing tourism trade, lies in ruins, as does the more upmarket Neeland Hotel further down the road. Today the only visitors to the city are local and international aid workers; who in close cooperation with the Pakistani military, work around the clock in what has become a tireless race against time. The United Nations has warned of a second wave of deaths unless more action is taken now. But the world has yet to awake to the calamity. A meeting of more than 60 international donor countries in Geneva on Wednesday raised fresh pledges of US $580 million to support relief and reconstruction in northern Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but little of this was earmarked for the UN’s $550 million appeal for emergency assistance – shelter, medical assistance and food – for the survivors.

The Neelam Hotel, which once catered to tourists in Muzaffarabad, was flattened by the 8 October quake

The economic impact will be devastating and particularly hard on the 5 million people affected throughout the quake-affected regions of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, most of whom were largely impoverished already. Inside Muzaffarabad city the destruction is overwhelming, with building after building, home after home, knocked to the ground by nature’s wrath. Bright clothing, books and personal belongings litter the peripheries, while survivors look to salvage what little they can. However, there is little in Muzaffarabad to reclaim. At least 30 percent of the buildings were destroyed, 40 percent rendered uninhabitable and 30 percent partially affected, according to Jesper Lund, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) in Muzaffarabad. Although the city struggles to regain a certain degree of normalcy, that facade rapidly dissipates with a quick turn in either direction. A simple detour down a side street reveals a different reality altogether. The stench of death still permeates the air in places where bodies remain entombed under the rubble – their screams forever engrained in the minds of those who tried feverishly to dig them out – mostly by hand. Shelter is at a premium and scores of informal tent settlements have sprung up in and around the city – many of them catering to those in the surrounding villages and remote hamlets - who are slowly but surely coming down from the mountains in search of aid. Their plight is undoubtedly worse, but with initial concentration placed on the quake-affected cities and towns of Muzaffarabad, Mansehra, Bagh, Balakot, Batgram and Abbottabad, their horror stories have yet to be fully told. The government promises to build model cities and towns in their place, cities with much better infrastructure throughout quake-affected regions. But translating that pledge into more than rhetoric will take decades - and at a price no one can afford. The Pakistani government estimates the cost of damage at some $5 billion. The city’s water network was almost totally smashed, as were most of the hospitals, now overflowing with patients with no place to go. Health and sanitation in the city remains poor, despite the noble efforts of eight field hospitals set up in the city, offering a total bed capacity of just 600.

Scenes of utter destruction following the 8 October quake in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Outside the city, the situation is much the same. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), of the 155 pre-earthquake health facilities found throughout Muzaffarabad district, where upwards of 900,000 people lived, 147 were virtually destroyed. Primary healthcare services have yet to be revitalised and rubbish disposal of any sort has yet to restart, making the risk of disease outbreaks still very real. The education system in Pakistan-administered Kashmir has been reduced to a fraction of what it was before the quake, which razed schools, colleges and universities to the ground. Of the 810 primary schools found in Muzaffarabad district prior to the quake, very few are in any condition to reopen. According to the Pakistani Ministry of Education (MoE), there were 95,691 students enrolled at the primary level, 11,482 of whom perished in the disaster. But again actual numbers remain unclear if you consider the many private institutions and madrasas (religious schools) that scatter the area, in addition to many of the smaller rural schools where reportedly whole classrooms were wiped out. Meanwhile, for thousands of people throughout this quake-devastated area, the wait for assistance has become too cruel to bear. A once spirited population, proud of the natural beauty that surrounds this shattered city, many local residents have all but given up. “For me, this is the end,” Imtiaz Kayani said, wiping a tear from his eye. “How can we ever recover from this?” the 45-year-old taxi driver asked, a question no one quite seemed ready to answer. “This city had a heart and that heart has been broken,” he exclaimed.