Monday, October 10, 2005

Aftermath

The other day when I posted the news on earthquake in Islamabad, I had sketchy information. It was some fifteen minutes past nine when i first learnt of the 7.6 tremors and the collapse of a building in Islamabad. Logging onto newsites, most reports were focussing on the devastation in Kashmir, Islamabad/R.Pindi and some of that information i started putting up in comments.
At that time all media had on hands was information from the capital and from the media's point of view, the collapsed Margalla Towers made great footage, any experts that they called in were from the Met office whoe went on about the kinds of quakes and its magnitude this time round.
and then reports started coming in and i went in a freeze.
if i thought islamabad was badly hit, it was nothing compared to waht happened up north.
I have an album from my trip with Uni to the Northern Areas in the summer 0f 2000. We went to Balakot, the same hamlet where 400 school children died. and that too was nothing. We were stopped on the trecherous mountain raods by random landslides, trapped on raod for more than six hours. the FWO was quick, they had dyanamite to blow up the landsliding. and that took six hours. the northern areas of Pakistan are essentially cut off from the country. just one road snakes through the mountain ranges. waht would be the speed of relief operations reaching the place is a disturbing thought. at least the nation has woken up and is responding to aid pleas.
and so is teh world chipping in. Its disturbing TV and newspapers. Mom's so upset that we are thinking of banning her from watching any more TV.
What's happened has happened. What is important is the rescue and rehabilitation work.
And prayers. Humans have an amazing coping up mechanism. if rescue teams can reach in time, those buried under the rubble can still come out live.
i have to stop thinking on what has happened and work on what can be done.
and pray that money raking bastards who remain so irrespective of what hits their cities/villages refrain from their activities for just a while. those profiteers...i am not even sure of what kind of help is needed. Monetary? try paying a mother who's lost all her kids in the school collapse. food packets? clothes? medicines? I just wish I were a doctor or even strong enough to fly up north and do my bit. life sitting here and paying token lip service sucks.

11 comments:

The Usual Suspect said...

I hope insha'Allah all is well with you and your family.

zaza said...

random blogger browser from U.K.
i hope you and other people around you are ok. seems like a dream, a trance like state that we will step out of but its not. its reality, the world is going down and its all building up to the Day of Judgement.

vividentity said...

Please add a ribbon for donations to your blog, get the code from http://vivid.co.nr (in the third column, at the end) and place it anywhere in your template, it’ll place itself automatically on the upper right corner.

Please spread this message.

Anonymous said...

ARY had a special transmission on yesterday - Sajid Hassan, Fakhr-e-Alam, Moin Akhtar, and ARY CEO Salman hosting it.

As I wept again and again with Sajid Hassan and Fakhr-e-Alam, I realized I had never felt more useless, more non-consequential ever in my life. I also realized I had become a lifelong fan of Sajid Hassan and Fakhr, may Allah reward them for all the good work they are doing, and may Allah give us all the opportunity to become at least partially as useful in this world as these two men, and scores of other people have proven themselves in these times.

You are right, sitting at home, and paying token lip service sucks - BIG TIME!

art'd said...

yeah i know what u mean...i wish i could do something else too, something more useful other than just donating stuff for the aid...the feeling of desparation and....uh i dont know...its literally haunting me! and seriously i dont know how islamabad is still standing...cuz i live there and the earthquake that totally flattened all those places...the same earthquake damaged only the margala towers of isb...maybe Allah Tallah is giving us time...??...to mend our ways??

S A J Shirazi said...

You linked to This is Pakistan.

Anonymous said...

vhey check this out:

http://www.desipundit.com/2005/10/22/blog-quake-day/

Anonymous said...

hey, y'r u ignoring d bloggy???qadrdaan ka khayaal karein....

Anonymous said...

Eid Mubarak! :)

Unknown said...

EID MUBARAK

Rihla 2006 said...

Eid Mubarak sis, come back :) *Hugz*

blogger templates | Make Money Online