Fighting to Survive

NURI, Pakistan (November 8, 2005) - It was midday when I reached Nuri, a village in the Balakot District. More than two weeks since the earthquake, there was still no road to reach the village except for a steep rocky path, which was narrow with a cliff on one side and debris along the other. It led us to a field surrounded by hills with tents were scattered here and there. None of them were suitable for winter weather and some were merely made of plastic sheeting.

Bibi Ayesha, 35, and her two children Samina and Munir are from the Dana village in Balakot. All of them moved from their own village seeking shelter. According to Ayesha, around 90 percent of the stone-and-mud homes in her village were ground to dust and the remaining 10 percent have become dangerous and uninhabitable. Sixty families were living in Dana before the earthquake. Many of them have died, many of them moved and some are still in the village searching for their families.

Ayesha, like so many others, was working in a field when the earthquake struck. All of a sudden, she felt as though she had lost control of her body and the whole world around her was shaking. It took some time for her to realize that it was a "jaljalla" — an earthquake. Immediately, she ran home to look for her children. As she made her way home, all the houses she passed had collapsed and people were screaming for help. "I saw my little one rolling on the ground. My daughter was crying because her arm was pinned under a thick wooden frame. I was not able to rescue my 10-year-old son who was inside the house.

"My husband and I tried to find him; unfortunately, we were not even able to find his body," Ayesha explained. She continued, "Four days after the quake, we decided to move because there were frequent aftershocks and my daughter became sick. My husband took her to the camp doctor who plastered her arm." Ayesha spoke as if she felt relief just by sharing her pain.

Four-year-old little Samina has been suffering from high fever and pain, but has not returned to see a doctor. Ayesha is now concerned about her daughter's health, but her options are limited.

Tetanus has already begun claiming the lives of the injured in the earthquake-affected areas. Federal Relief Commissioner Major-General Farooq acknowledged the critical shortage of tetanus vaccines throughout Pakistan. Delays in medical attention are becoming a grim situation. "Even minor injuries are turning septic and claiming lives," Isabelle Simpson of Médicins Sans Frontières said.

Complicating this medical crisis, Ayesha, like so many others, is also struggling to regularly feed her family and keep her children warm in increasingly colder temperatures in the high mountain village.

CARE intends to reach around 7,500 families in the most affected areas in the North West Frontier Province, as well as in Azad, Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), through emergency relief programs and working with communities to ensure safe shelter and health care.