Pakistan blog tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2006:/applications/blogs/pakistan/42 2006-10-04T17:35:35Z Sean Kenny reports back from Pakistan a year on from the South Asia earthquake. Movable Type 3.2 A life in the rubble tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2006:/applications/blogs/pakistan//42.186 2006-10-04T13:38:27Z 2006-10-04T17:35:35Z There was nothing to mark where the classroom had been except for a fenced off patch of bumpy grass covered in flowers and tinsel. This, a sign says, is the mass grave of 63 girls who died when their school... Sean Kenny
Welcome to Balakot.

A small town in a green and airy valley, Balakot was one of the areas worst affected by the quake - 90% of the town was destroyed in a few minutes and nearly 14,000 people were killed.

We spent Tuesday taking a reporter/photographer team from the Times newspaper around the earthquake affected area, starting in Muzaffarrabad and then over to the neighbouring town of Balakot, about two hours' drive away.

Balakot is a ramshackle wreck. Doorframes loom out of rubble and cracks zig-zag up walls. The main bazaar area used to be full of three-storey buildings but now no building tops ten feet high, as the roofs and upper levels concertinaed down on the unfortunate inhabitants.

Nothing has been rebuilt here at all. The Pakistani government has decreed that the area is too dangerous and wants to move everyone left in Balakot into a nearby, and hopefully safer, area. So lots of people here are still languishing in tents, shacks and other distinctly temporary accommodation. Unfortunately many Balakot residents don't want to leave their home town at the government's behest and the result is a lot of traumatised and angry people.

Javed Iqbal, a local journalist, told us that although a quarter of the remaining population had gone to the big cities in Pakistan, the rest were in no mood to shift.

We found two sisters, Robina and Ruby Shaheen, living in an open-sided tent. They'd lost two sisters and their brother, as well as many members of their extended family.

The women, both in their 20s, had calipers on their legs after falling masonry caused multiple fractures. Before the earthquake their family had owned a hotel. Now all their worldly goods are stacked in metal trunks in the back of the tent.

"We don't want to go to the new town," Ruby said. "We want to live here, where our ancestors are buried. We've lived here for generations.

"I want the old days back, even though I know that can't happen."

]]> Muzzaffarabad camps tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2006:/applications/blogs/pakistan//42.181 2006-10-02T15:55:32Z 2006-10-05T10:42:00Z The earthquake scars are still fresh on the hillside above Muzzaffarabad. Above an incision running along a countour line there are trees and greenery, but below the hillside has been sliced away leaving nothing but grey scree and rubble. When... Sean Kenny The earthquake scars are still fresh on the hillside above Muzzaffarabad. Above an incision running along a countour line there are trees and greenery, but below the hillside has been sliced away leaving nothing but grey scree and rubble. When the earthquake rocked this mountainous corner of Pakistani-administered Kashmir last year thousands of tons of rubble were dislodged and came crashing down - destroying the village of Bela Maikri.


The survivors from this village have spent the last year in the al-hadith camp outside Muzzaffarabad, where every day they can look above their tents and jerry-rigged electricity cables and see the remains of the slope which buried their relatives alive.


Nasima Bibi, 25, lost her husband Jameel when the roof collapsed and killed him in his sleep. She managed to escape with her three young children, all under five.


Now she is a woman adrift in what is very much a man's world.


"I fear most for the health of the children," she said. "Sometimes I feel I can't provide for their needs."


Although she is entitled to around £1,000 compensation she hasn't received the money yet.


"I can't read and write. I can't go into a bank."


What of the future?


She looked at the floor, kicked a stone with her foot.


"I'm not thinking about the future," she said. "I'm just sitting here, counting the days."


The al-hadith camp houses a whole village which was wiped out in the earthquake in Oct 2005. The quake affected an area the size of Switzerland, killing 73,000 and making millions homeless. The camp is semi-permanent: there's a small shop selling soap and cigarrettes and the tents have been reinforced with plastic sheeting.


The camp leader Akhtar Syeed told us every one of the 124 families here suffered a death in the earthquake. Now a year on the pain and worry show no sign of abating.


"I'm deeply worried about the coming winter," he said. "The tents will not stand up to the weather. "


He's angry at the government for not giving them land to replace that buried by the earthquake.


"It's a humiliation to live in a tent," the wizened 55-year-old said. "Death would have been better. I was renting my land for 35 years. Now I'm pleading the government to give us some more land. I want to build somewhere for my children. I think they're in danger in the coming winter."

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