Relief still missing in many villages

All the dead in Oghi have finally been buried. Grave digger Mohammad Salim, 38, finally sits down for a much-needed cup of tea, savouring the single rusk his wife has served with it. Relief supplies in the small town are still scarce and Salim has not had the time to travel to Mansehra or other towns to buy food. “I have dug grave after grave,” he said. “Though it seems callous to even talk about myself, the fact is my back is aching so badly I can hardly stand up. There were plenty of volunteers to help me, but grave digging is technical work and very tough labour. It needs experience to dig a proper grave.” Sixty fresh graves in the town’s quiet graveyard testify to the terrible toll the quake has taken in the town of 57,000 people, about 35 km northwest of Mansehra in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP). In Oghi, 70 residents have died, though across the town’s wider administrative area, more than 500 deaths are feared. Crumbled buildings and a desolate sea of debris further reflect the scale of damage in Oghi, yet assistance has been limited, with relief efforts focused on centres such as Balakot, Battal and Battagram in NWFP, and in Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Rawalakot in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. About 20 km east of Oghi, the town of Baffa has also been devastated, with almost every building either flattened or badly damaged. Yet the town of 30,000, like its neighbour, seems to have been bypassed by the long convoys of trucks, jeeps and other vehicles winding their way past Mansehra to Battagram district. Villagers from the tiny communities dotted around the area report the situation is even worse in less accessible areas. In some cases, no relief at all has reached villages. Desperate survivors are now walking to nearby towns in the hope of finding something to eat. “We have been living, quite literally, on roasted corn for eight days,” said Yusuf Khan, who had walked to Oghi from his village of Bagarian, 15 km away. “We pluck the cobs from our fields even though they are not yet ripened and cook the grains on an open fire.” Many villages in the area have been flattened and the dead still lie under the rubble. Grave diggers such as Salim will have to labour for many weeks to bury those emerging from beneath the debris. Families, too scared to go indoors, sit amid the ruins of their razed villages, around television sets perched on table tops, almost miraculously still able to bring the latest news. “We saw all this talk of a massive relief effort and of teams from around the world coming in to help our army,” said Yusuf. “We saw the men in suits sitting around conference tables talking about the quake. Therefore, we kept waiting. We were sure they would reach us, help bury the dead, dig up the bodies and give us some food and water. “But when nothing happened for over 10 days, we realised we must take matters into our own hands or face starvation. Some of the children have not eaten a full meal since the quake.” In Battgram district, most notably in the Allai area where ridge after ridge of almost impenetrable mountain terrain gives way to deep ravines, survivors have left their devastated villages to bring tales of communities of 500 or 600 people reduced to just two or three; of entire families wiped out by the worst natural disaster experienced by a people accustomed to some of the harshest living conditions on the planet. “My two sons are dead,” said Zareef Shah, 65, from the village of Ribat in the Allai area. “I have two daughters-in-law and six grandchildren left alive. I must find a place for them to live.” He was searching for relatives in Oghi in the hope of moving in with them, but learned they had fled to the city of Rawalpindi. Zareef had travelled with his grandchildren, intending to leave them in Oghi while he went back to fetch their mothers. “We will all go back now,” he said. “What else can I do? We cannot afford to go to Rawalpindi. I’ve never been there and besides, people there can’t take us all in,” he added, carrying a bag of wheat flour “some kind people” had given him. Nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), international relief agencies and even the military acknowledge many devastated areas have still not been reached. According to the Abbottabad-based Sungi Foundation and other relief organisations, hundreds of villages and small towns in the Battagram, Kohistan and Mansehra districts, and many parts of the Pakistan-administered Kashmir have not yet received any outside help. Meanwhile, in Geneva UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland again warned the situation in quake-hit areas was deteriorating by the day and “worse than in the tsunami”. World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Mia Turner, visiting quake-hit areas, concurred, saying: “This is probably the greatest logistical challenge ever faced while undertaking an emergency effort.” However, while the international community struggles to appreciate the scale of the disaster and relief agencies grapple with how to prevent thousands more deaths from disease, cold and hunger, villagers like Zareef Shah cannot afford to wait any longer for assistance. “We must now fend for ourselves and join hands as a people who have been deserted by the outside world,” he said, wiping the perspiration from his brow as he slung his sack of flour onto his back and prepared for the long trip, by jeep and on foot, back to his village where people still wait for help.