eRotaryLondon
Rotary eClub of London Centenary

“THE TRAGEDY THE WORLD FORGOT"
(Headline in the Independent newspaper 21 November 2005)

FACTS

• The Earthquake struck Pakistan 8 October 2005
• 80,000 people perished; 70,000 seriously injured
• 3.5million people lost their homes
• 80,000 need shelter NOW
• Many tents supplied are unsuitable for the winter
• 15,000 shelters needed NOW

• UN Aid calls for $550 million.
• Only $210 million pledged or committed
• UK private donations of £40million pledged
• UK Government gives £33million short term aid
• UK Government pledges another £70 million

Colin Bryant, IPDG & eClub Founder reports:

A late night phone call on Thursday and a frantic weekend saw me on board a Virgin 747 mercy flight to Islamabad arriving Pakistan on the following Monday, 31st October. The flight carried 40 Shelterboxes - we'd hoped for 600 - and many boxes of Save the Children Fund hooded tee-shirts carrying the Save the Children logo.

With the items of aid were teams from both charities, as well as Virgin executives and two TV teams from Independent Television News (ITN) and Sky News tracking the work of Save the Children. About 20 passengers occupied the Boeing 747 flight, which cost about £120,000, which had been generously donated by Virgin Atlantic.

Early on Tuesday morning the flight arrived. At midnight District Governor Faiz Kidwai (D 3270 Pakistan and Afghanistan) flew in from Mecca and we agreed to go into the mountains on Wednesday – the next day - to see how the Shelterboxes funded by Rotary clubs and other organisations were distributed and used. The journey to the Bagh relief base camp in Kashmir lasted almost 5 hours, with recently landslide-cleared roads forcing very slow progress.

Bagh is one of eight earthquake centres and lies south east of Muzaffarabad. The region has been the focus of three Islamabad Rotary Clubs - the two principle clubs being Islamabad West, Punjab and Islamabad Margalla, Punjab. They work closely with and through a nongovernmental group that had been working throughout the Bagh region for several years on an empowerment programme of rural development, principally for women.

The bustling town of Bagh lies high in the mountains and located the equally bustling base camp. Lorries take aid to the base camp, offload into secure storage area and smaller vehicles carry the resources to seven satellite bases - the highest at 7000 feet, and on the snowline. More than 10 feet of snow can fall in December – forcing any goods to be taken on foot for the final stage of their journey to those in need.

We had seen many collapsed homes and as we went higher we saw the remains of whole villages - virtually gone. I stood on the ruins of one house that still had 36 people buried in the ruins. I saw some people cobbling together makeshift shelters in the ruins of their former homes; others were living in tents on the ground of their former home. In Kashmir there are no land records, so possession is ownership. Your land not only contains your memories but the graves of your ancestors, your livelihood for today and the resources for tomorrow’s future generations. The debris may also conceal nowinaccessible family treasure, representing remittances from migrant Kashmiri chefs as well as far-flung family members from across the world. Despite the altitude, the winter risks of starvation and freezing temperatures, many are staying put. Perhaps when the winter snows come, they may be forced to desert their land and possessions.

The local Rotarians, NRSP and the Shelterbox 4R team together had transported Shelterboxes high in to hills and small groups of Rotary tents with the Rotary Wheel were visible in a number of locations. The occupiers and camp volunteers spoke highly about the quality and suitability of the Rotary tents. Occasionally you happened upon a small smiling child with leg, arm or hip in plaster outside a tent. Everyone had lost someone three weeks earlier - but life was going on in a calm ordered way in a relatively small tent, home for up to ten family members. I saw one clutch of twenty Rotary tents occupied by one extended family of about 150 members. There is plenty of water around but none of the home comforts associated with everyday domestic life in a proper house.

My words can only give you a glimpse of the deprived life situation of these poor victims in the mountains. Their food and cooking fuel comes largely from aid distributed from the base and satellite food stores.

In the area I visited there was a surplus of clothing - some of it being used to fuel fires. Everyone seemed adequately and appropriately clothed. Most were accommodated in some form of tented or makeshift shelter with bedding - there was a preference for quilts and blankets. This is not the case throughout the whole earthquake region I understand.

Back in Islamabad on Thursday with the festival of Eid-al-Fitr rapidly approaching on Friday, I was able to see the Rotarians’ warehouse on a Rotarian's large farm 35kms outside Islamabad. There I saw boxes awaiting transport into the hills. I saw one with a DHL sticker from Britain dated 10 October - two days after the earthquake and was impressed. Other boxes had been sent from other countries. I also saw other tent and food resources that Rotarians had acquired.

Transport costs had escalated ten-fold on the basis of supply and demand. On the three/four day Eid-al-Fitr celebration all the drivers returned to their villages, so no transport would then be available. Rotarians estimated that they still had some 22 truck loads of supplies that would be sent into the mountains in the weeks after the 7th November.

I was also able to visit Camp H11, one of three set up in the Islamabad area. It was a small town of about 15,000 people in ordered row after row of closely packed tents - some with "house" numbers on them - provided by many charities across the world: each sub-set bearing its sponsor's banner. Most tents had water run-off trenches around them. The women were generally sat inside the tents while the children and men were clustered in groups outside the tents. I was pleased to come across Rotary International’s own group of tents. One unusual subset had been donated by the Turkish Government, all with high rising towers in the Ali Baba/ Lawrence of Arabia style. Each of the sub-sets was overseen by some representatives in one case the Pakistan Air Force. The camp had installed a children's playground, fully-staffed fire extinguisher points and there is also a police presence. I can only imagine the conditions when it rains and the people are crammed inside - ten to a tent and surrounded by a muddy quagmire!

There are too many victims for the hospitals to accommodate. I was able to visit an Islamabad hospital where 86 recovering homeless patients had been decanted into tents in the grounds. Here I found a 700-strong family community looking after the 86 patients. A female Rotarian assistant governor was playing a leading role in overseeing and managing this camp. Her Rotarian husband was involved elsewhere registering homeless earthquake victims’ arrivals in Islamabad and arranging places where they could stay.

I walked through this camp, speaking to patients and their families, and dishing out donated chocolate bars to the many children. Whole families were in the tents; some had retrieved rugs as ground cover, others had the occasional mattress to create some sense of home; the children simply sitting. Considering the loss of their relatives and perhaps all their worldly goods three weeks earlier, they all seemed calm and together - I frequently wondered how I would feel in their situation. Small talk somehow seemed inappropriate. I left the camp with the comment "Doctor knows best" from an elderly sad-faced lady, ringing in my ears. This comment evoked in my mind "God knows best" but no one had said it. I wondered how many thought it.

The people in the earthquake zone need Rotary's help and the world's help, not only now but in the coming months and years. Local Rotarians are working very well - I felt very proud that I am a Rotarian.

Let us not forget these victims. Money is needed now to buy the survival materials that are available locally. £120 can buy the equivalent contents of a Shelterbox, or an alternative kit to assemble a shack on the ruins of their homes to tide them over until the Spring when rebuilding may start.

The NRSP provided me with a list of goods for the Rebuild Option:

The cost is very little to us. Just £300. Will you help?

Donations payable to the "Kashmir Earthquake Rotary Relief Fund" (administered by the Rotary Club of Tower Hamlets) should be sent to Rotarian Rasib Karim:

For broadband users a 148Mb mpeg video by Colin can be downloaded <here>
or viewed using RealPlayer <here>
This is an abridged version of Colin's full report at www.rotaryinlondon.org
Shelterbox pictures by Mark Pearson