No Burial for Balakot

rsridhar
Just remember, the scale of this disaster is too huge, area-wise, by the numbers of people affected and the difficulty of terrain, for any Army to able to deal with it competently.

Here`s a piece in mullah omar`s rag saying Ivan was divine retribution for Iraq...

The article isn`t on Dawn`s website but it`s archived here

Iraq has a twin: Florida

By Anjum Niaz

The devastation that nature has wreaked on Florida hints at the fact that there is something called retributive justice.

Hairy - how else to explain? Nature has its direct way of punishing nations that wreak hafvoc on others. Charlie, Frances and now Ivan strike terror and cold-bloodedly illuminate how the hand of God works, a chilly reminder to the believers that they need to brush up on their holy scriptures, for mortals oftentimes forget the message in moments of vainglory.

Some call it Divine Justice.

Not long ago, Americans rained rockets on Iraq; killed its civilians; maimed the country; left the living without water, food and shelter; opened up the floodgates for thugs, rapists and looters. In sum, the citizens with the richest oil reserves overnight had their lives turned topsy-turvy.

Fast forward: aerial shots that we watch 24/7 bombarded over the TV screens and banner-headlined reports in newspapers tell the story of shredded roofs, torn trees, slammed concrete, curfew conditions. This time, not in Iraq, but in America itself.

Unbelievable is the resemblance! ``God gives you an example from your own realm.`` (Holy Quran).

Re: # 62 hamid
//...i had frau sadna figured out many many years ago...//

``frau sadna``? Then what does this make you - Last time I checked, you were giving a friday sermon to pakis on how a dead Indian makes a good Indian and all that.... :)

I heard - you pakis even have built monuments all over the place to emphasize that fact.....

Sherman Statue in South Asia are true..

mohar11 #83
Yup, hamidm is one to talk given that he is the one who brings up Aryans. I remember pulling his leg about it with an elaborate scheme involving Aryan blood parts per million meters to be used when the Pakis finally invade us. :)

In the line of duty:

SUNGI is an organization, started by Omar Asghar Khan - son of Air Marshal Asghar. After the former`s death, it is being run by his wife Samina. Omar Asghar was in politics, and would have made an excellent Prime Minister of Pakistan, in my opinion.

``S U N G I D e v e l o p m e n t F o u n d a t i o n

Obituary Islamabad, 16th October 2005: It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of our colleague Mr Tariq Khan. Tariq was in charge of the Field Support Unit in Jared village looking after the Community-Based Resource Management Project (CBRM) in Manoor valley, Tehsil Balakot, District Mansehra, for the last 6-7 months. The CBRM is an initiative being implemented by SUNGI in collaboration with the Government of Pakistan and the Government of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Tariq passed away in a tragic accident on the morning of 16th October, 2005, while busy in earthquake relief work in the Balakot area. A tireless social worker, he had been working to deliver a supply of relief goods via helicopter, to the Manoor valley, where road links had been severed. The relief team had come via helicopter, and after successfully delivering the supplies was returning to get more. However, the presence of a crowd of affectees on the ground made it difficult and somewhat unsafe for the pilot to take-off from there. In order to facilitate this, 40-year old Tariq got off the helicopter and attempted to disperse the gathering crowds. Quite accidentally, his head hit the smaller fan on the tail of the helicopter, which proved to be a fatal blow. Tariq will be remembered for his invaluable contribution to SUNGI’s endeavours towards sustainable development programs in Balakot, and will be sorely missed by his colleagues in SUNGI and by community members in the area where he was doing extremely useful work.

Email: sungi@sungi.org website: www.sungi.org

In the line of duty:

``From: Dr. S. Sohail H. Naqvi
Sent Sunday October 16,

Dear Colleagues

I have to unfortunately be the bearer of some terrible news. Dr. Hamidullah (`hamidu@brain.net.pk`) passed away in a helicopter crash last night in the Bagh area. He had gone there to study the effect of the earthquake, and for some reason the helicopter crashed, killing all on board. This is a terrible tragedy for Pakistan. Dr. Hamidullah was one of the finest scientists that I ever known. He was simply a lovely human being, enthusiastic about his work with a dream of building a great centre of excellence in Geology. Finally all his dreams were coming true. He got the grant to build the centre and was at the pinnacle of his professional life. Collaborators from all over the world were coming to work with him. The Prime Minister had declared his project to be the most important project being conducted in Pakistan, and just when Pakistan needed him most, and just as had reached the top, and was defining new heights, this tragedy happened. Coming at this time of anguish and torment for Pakistan one does not know how this loss will be borne. This superb human being gave his life for his work and his country. Today, I do not know how I will carry on, but tomorrow we all know we must go on; for the sake of the sacrifice of Dr. Hamidullah.

regards
Dr. S. Sohail H. Naqvi Executive Director Higher Education Commission``

Romair: Thanks for posting. Ina lillah wa ina alayhey raajayoon.

PM unveils 12-point reconstruction plan

Excerpts:

``The entire recovery and rehabilitation operation could take five to ten years requiring $5 billion,`` he said while addressing the special session of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Council at Prime Minister’s Secretariat here on Monday.

..... He said nevertheless this catastrophe has galvanised the nation in a spirit of common humanity to provide succour to their fellow citizens in their hour of need. ``They have responded as one people with an immense, spontaneous outpouring compassion and generosity on a scale never witnessed before,`` he added.

Pakistani soldiers lead mules carrying aid for people affected by the Oct. 8 earthquake, as they approach the Pakistani Kashmiri village of Bisuti, tucked about 9,000 feet (nearly 3,000 meters) into the Himalayan Mountains, Monday Oct. 17, 2005. The nearest town of Bagh where relief supplies could be found is a rugged descent of 5,000 feet (nearly 2,000 meters). The road weaves and winds along unforgiving terrain, with high mountains on one side and a sheer drop on the other. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Pakistani soldiers lead mules carrying aid for people affected by the Oct. 8 earthquake, as they approach the Pakistani Kashmiri village of Bisuti, tucked about 9,000 feet (nearly 3,000 meters) into the Himalayan Mountains, Monday Oct. 17, 2005. The nearest town of Bagh where relief supplies could be found is a rugged descent of 5,000 feet (nearly 2,000 meters). The road weaves and winds along unforgiving terrain, with high mountains on one side and a sheer drop on the other. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Quake relief resumes, more deaths feared

Excerpts:

MUZAFFARABAD, Oct 17: Vital helicopter flights carrying food, blankets and tents to untold numbers of survivors of the earthquake in northern Pakistan resumed on Monday as lashing rains, which compounded their misery, ended.

However, many are likely to die before help can reach them in the remnants of remote mountain villages cut off by landslides and buckled roads with winter approaching rapidly.

“We saw rows of people in a really bad way with suppurating wounds. They need urgent treatment,” Sean Keogh, a doctor with the British medical aid group Merlin, said after a three-day trek up the badly hit Neelum valley of Azad Kashmir.

“There are 1,000 to 2,000 significantly wounded that need surgical treatment,” he said. “Wounds are pouring puss, patients are going to get septic and die.”

With the valley’s road swept away by landslides, nobody knows how many people need help in its upper reaches north of Muzaffarabad, Keogh said.

“There are going to be a lot more deaths.”


HELCOPTER, TENT SHORTAGE: There are still not enough helicopters. Tents, despite a spate of contributions from abroad, are still in short supply with the lowest estimate of the number of people who lost everything in the Oct 8 quake at one million.

Nearly 40,000 people were killed in Pakistan and 65,000 injured. Another 1,300 were killed in held Kashmir.

Many of the survivors were under only the flimsiest of shelters on Sunday, when heavy rain grounded most relief flights.

Mules, horses and donkeys were also trying to get aid into areas of the NWFP and the Neelum and Jhelum valleys.

“You can go in any direction and paint a dire picture,” said Robert Holden, head of the UN disaster relief operation.

“The scale seems to be growing and the humanitarian lifeline is very thin,” he said. “The things going against us are the weather and the supplies not coming quickly enough.”

A steady trickle of people, despairing of help reaching them and some carrying the injured, continued to emerge from the hills, sometimes after days of trekking, overwhelming hospitals where doctors were working around the clock.

All too often, they are being obliged to amputate limbs after broken bones untreated for too long turned gangrenous and the confirmed death toll is expected to rise substantially.

NO EPIDEMICS YET: There are also fears of disease from ruined sewage systems and drinking water sources, but Health Minister Mohammad Naseer Khan told Reuters vaccination teams were fanning out to innoculate people against diseases such as cholera and tetanus.

There were no signs yet of epidemics, he said. “To date, I think, praise to God, we have, fortunately, no signs, but we are constantly monitoring because that is the key thing till we clear off the debris and bury the bodies.”

The government appealed for doctors to fly in to help and the US army was preparing to dispatch a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit from Germany. “We are ready to go and our soldiers are excited to help the Pakistani people,” Colonel Angel Lugo said at Ramstein Air Base.

A pilot of one of the US helicopters dispatched from the fight against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan said some Kashmir villages looked normal from the air, but consisted only of intact roofs lying on the ground.—Reuters

re: posts 80, 81
Agreed.
Sridhar

Will the Indians please request their government to allow any foreign aid? not necessarily from Pakistan but any at all?


NY Times

October 19, 2005
Letter From Asia
Pride and Politics: India Rejects Quake Aid
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
NEW DELHI, Oct. 18 - Calamities of nature do not just test the capacity of a state. They can also offer unexpected opportunities for political craftsmanship.

Take India. The government has announced that it needs no international aid to recover from the Oct. 8 earthquake that leveled villages in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, killed an estimated 1,300 people there and displaced roughly 30,000 families.

As temperatures fall to near freezing in the hilltop hamlets of Kashmir, the most liberal estimates suggest that fewer than half of the surviving families have tents to sleep in. Yet a full nine days and nights after the quake, Indian officials say they have no need for the United Nations, nor foreign aid agencies, to bring tents from abroad.

Indian officials say that they are able to care for their own, and that tents are coming from private producers and the Indian military. What is more, India has sent aid, including 620 tents, to its neighbor and archrival, Pakistan. ``We ourselves are taking care of our victims,`` said Navtej Sarna, the Foreign Ministry spokesman. ``When there are offers by friendly countries and anything is needed, these offers are considered.``

It is too early to tell whether India, which seeks a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, can go it alone. Certainly there is anger in Indian-administered Kashmir among people who have been forced to build their own tents out of the wooden beams and tin sheets retrieved from the rubble of their homes. Even so, India`s posture says a great deal about the politics of disaster aid, and about India`s own ambitions to assert itself as a world power.

India also refused international aid in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, though it later allowed United Nations and private agencies to help. Three years ago, it rebuffed development aid from a number of foreign donors, saying it was no longer necessary. In short, India has been anxious to portray itself as a giver, rather than a receiver. ``What we can manage on our own, we do,`` said Hamid Ansari, a retired Indian diplomat. ``There`s a certain sense of self-confidence that we can manage it and, let me say, a desire to signal that you are capable of managing things on your own.``

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the director of a private research group here called the Center for Policy Research, saw reflected in India`s rejection of foreign aid so far a desire to be seen as an emerging global power, or one of what he called ``the big boys.``

``The risk really is that in our refusal to accept aid I don`t think we are keeping people to whom aid might go as central,`` Mr. Mehta said. ``We are playing politics with aid, using aid to make a statement.``

Pakistan`s approach has been exactly the opposite. Hit a whole lot harder by the Oct. 8 quake - its official death toll stood at 42,000 on Tuesday- Pakistan has appealed for worldwide help and allowed foreigners to travel to its side of Kashmir and to the traditionally well-guarded pockets of North-West Frontier Province, the two areas that suffered the greatest damage.

Pakistan is the world`s largest manufacturer of tents, but still cannot produce nearly enough. The United Nations said Tuesday that 350,000 additional tents were urgently needed and that 500,000 earthquake survivors had still not received any medical care, food or other assistance.

There is no agreement on whether India has sufficient tents to care for its own. The Foreign Ministry spokesman said the Indian Army would be able to help make up the shortfall. The army spokesman in Kashmir, Lt. Col. S. K. Batra, cautioned that the military, itself badly hit in the earthquake, could not entirely deplete its own stock. The government`s joint secretary of disaster management, Aseem Khurana, vowed that enough tents would be sent within a week. So far, roughly 13,000 of the 30,000 tents required have been distributed, he said, slightly less than half sent by the Indian Army.

State government officials in Kashmir said they were puzzled about the dearth of tents. ``It is really eye-opening for us, that in this country with such a large population base, more than a million-strong army, and so many paramilitary forces we just do not have enough tents,`` said Muzaffar Baig, the Kashmir state finance and planning minister. ``Every day we are getting only 300 to 400 tents from the central government.``

R. K. Pachauri, director of the Energy Research Institute in Delhi, a private research group, insisted that if India had enough tents, they should have been distributed much more quickly. If it did not, it should have accepted them from overseas right away. ``We should really have been able to organize ourselves a little better,`` he said. That the quake struck the province of Jammu and Kashmir, which has been at the center of a long territorial dispute between India and Pakistan, makes the politics of aid particularly prickly. The Indian government has never been keen on outside intervention in Kashmir, so the subject of foreign aid to the quake victims is a touchy matter.

``New Delhi has adopted an enlightened approach to helping Pakistan during this tragedy, and a backward approach to accepting foreign humanitarian assistance on its side of the Kashmir divide,`` said Michael Krepon, president of the Washington-based Henry L. Stimson Center, which studies security issues. ``Part of this has to do with national pride, which is compounded by sensitivity to foreign governments making landfall in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.``

Kashmiri leaders have pressed New Delhi to embrace international aid as a humanitarian gesture. ``Allow international organizations to come in and help the Kashmiri people,`` said Yasin Malik, leader of a separatist group called Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. ``India will gain. They will not lose with this kind of gesture.``

In the back and forth between India and Pakistan, neighborly solidarity is difficult to distinguish from political gamesmanship. On Monday, Pakistan accepted India`s longstanding offer of helicopters to help with relief work, but said it would not take Indian military pilots or crews. On Tuesday afternoon, India announced that it would open a number of telephone lines to enable Kashmiris in its territory to communicate with their relatives on the Pakistani side.

By Tuesday evening, the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, called on India to allow Kashmiris to cross the disputed Line of Control to assist in relief efforts. Later in the evening, India said it welcomed General Musharraf`s suggestion. ``This is in line with India`s advocacy of greater movement across the line for relief work and closer people-to-people contacts,`` a Foreign Ministry statement said. ``India is willing to facilitate such movements, but we await word from Pakistan about the practical details of implementing this intention.``

Hari Kumar contributed reporting for this article.

hindvi #93

The position of Indian government baffles me. They are consistent. But they held the same position for the Tsunami victims. They have refused offers of foreign aid for general development save a select few states.

#94, #95

the calamity of this size shows-up in india at least once every year, its flood in bihar, cyclones in andhra and orissa, cloudburst of garhwal or recently, even the Bombay floods killed 1000-2000 people and made large numbers homeless. this quake being in kashmir we have hightened sensitivities and internatinal media coverage under the heading of politics. in other cases, internatinal media merely mentioned this in page 6 in a small paragraph, and maybe an ugly picture with a caption. in short, the tamasha value in this case is higher.

I did not read the article under discussion but I did read something interesting in today`s WSJ. Since I had read the paper version and was shocked to read the conversion from $ to Rs. and vice versa, I am glad it was fixed on the online version. Thank God.

Some good points are brought up on the aid and its disbursement. Somehow, the request for aid was not very clear inspite of the emphasis on the earthquake aftermath.

---

Wanted: 10,000 Houses
At Only $833 Each
By PERVEZ HOODBHOY
October 19, 2005; Page A12

See corrections & amplifications item below.

This is adapted from an email sent to friends by Mr. Hoodbhoy on Oct. 12, four days after an earthquake hit northern Pakistan and Kashmir.
* * *

BALAKOT, Pakistan-administered Kashmir -- They are still not even trying to extricate the dead. From under the rubble of collapsed buildings, a gut-wrenching smell of decaying corpses now fills the town. The rats have it good; the one I accidentally stepped upon was already fat. If there is indeed a plan to clear the concrete rubble in and around the town, nobody seems to have any clue. But the Balakotis are taking it in their stride -- nose masks are everywhere.

There is good news. The Mansehra-to-Balakot road stretch, finally forced open by huge army bulldozers and earth-moving machinery, is now available to relief trucks. Goods donated across the country are piled to the truck-roofs. If there ever was a time when the people of Pakistan moved together, this is it. Even the armed bandits who waylay relief supplies -- to guard against whom soldiers with automatic weapons stand at alert every few hundred yards -- cannot destroy the euphoria of having this solitary moment of unspoiled national unity.

Aid from across the world is making its way, and the U.S. is here too. Double-bladed Chinook helicopters, diverted from fighting al Qaeda in Afghanistan, weave their way through the mountains. They fly over the heartland of jihad and the militant training camps in Mansehra to drop food and tents a few miles beyond. Temporarily birds of peace instead of war, they do immensely more to soothe the highly Islamic, highly conservative, bearded mountain people than the reams of silly propaganda on glossy paper put out by the U.S. information services in Pakistan.

Visibility makes relief choppers terrific propaganda, for good or for worse. This is undoubtedly why the Pakistani government refused an Indian offer to send in helicopters for relief work in and around Muzaffarabad, the flattened capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. In spite of a much-celebrated peace process, Pakistan has also not issued visas to Indian peace groups and activists that seek participation in the relief effort. Indian activists are very frustrated.

Islamic groups from across the country have arrived in vast numbers. Some bring relief supplies, others simply harangue poor goat-herders and simple tillers of the soil to tell them that their misdeeds brought about this catastrophe. None seem to have an explanation for why God`s wrath was especially directed to mosques, madrassas and schools -- all of which have collapsed in huge numbers. And none say why thousands of the faithful have been buried alive in this sacred month of fasting.

Bad news: The aid is still too little, often of the wrong kind, and is not getting to those most affected. Hundreds of destroyed communities lie scattered deep in the mountains. We saw helicopters attempt aerial drops; landing is impossible in most places. But people told us that they often miss and the supplies land up thousands of feet below or in deep forests.

Distribution is haphazard and uncoordinated, done with little thought. In Balakot we saw relief workers simply throw packets of food and clothes from the top of trucks, and a subsequent riot. Hustlers thrive, the weak watch passively. Tons of clothes, lovingly donated and packed by citizens around Pakistan, but mostly useless because of specific cultural and climatic conditions, are mixed and scattered with garbage and rubble throughout the town.

I have mixed feelings about the army role. I did not see enough to validate a previous observation that they were shirking. But certainly, I did not see senior officers anywhere.

For me personally, there was a sense of déjà vu. Nearly 31 years ago, on Dec. 25, 1974, a powerful earthquake had flattened towns along the Karakorum Highway killing nearly 10,000 people. I had traveled with a university team into the same mountains for similar relief work. Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had made a passionate appeal for funds around the world, taken a token helicopter trip to the destroyed town of Besham, and made fantastic promises for rehabilitation. But then hundreds of millions of dollars in relief funds received from abroad mysteriously disappeared. Some well-informed people believe that those funds were used to kick off Pakistan`s secret nuclear program.

Shall the present government do better? This will only be if citizens, and international donors, demand transparency and accounts are available for public audit.

The clock is ticking. In barely two months from now, the mountains will get their first snowfall and temperatures will plummet below zero. There are simply not enough tents, blankets and warm clothes to go around. Hundreds of tent clusters have come up, but thousands of families remain out under the skies, facing rain and hail, and with dread in their hearts. These families have lost everything but the tattered clothes on their backs. Some even lost the land they had lived upon for generations -- the top soil simply slid away, leaving behind hard rock and rubble. Those without shelter will die. From a special university fund we have pledged a dozen families to rebuild their houses. This number can be pushed up to 50 with the amount others have pledged so far (assuming 50,000 Rupees per house [$833], where the cost is for wood and stone mostly). But 10,000 houses or more will be needed in the Mansehra-Balakot-Kaghan area alone, not to speak of adjoining Kashmir.

Mr. Hoodbhoy is professor of nuclear and high-energy physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. He is on the board of the Eqbal Ahmad Foundation Earthquake Relief Fund (P.O. Box 222, Princeton, NJ).

Corrections & Amplifications: 50,000 rupees is equivalent to about $833. The initial version of this article and its headline said 50,000 rupees is equivalent to $83.