Nasir Abdullah, 34, was in London when the Kashmir earthquake struck three years ago. He returned to his native city of Muzaffarabad to find that many of his friends and relatives had been among the 73,000 killed. This is his story.
When I look back now at the city where I grew up, I think of everything I have lost. I remember the small ground where I played cricket, the corridors of my house and the paintings, the market where I would laugh with my friends and we would play cards and have tea with Kashmiri biscuits. Now all those friends are dead, my house is gone, and there is nothing where the market was.
The earthquake happened at half past eight in morning. It was the month of Ramadan, so I had got up early to eat. When I saw the news on TV I felt faint. I knew my wife would be sleeping at home with our daughter. I was thinking about the construction of the houses. They are not built properly.
On the plane home, I was thinking it wouldn’t be that bad, maybe a few houses damaged. But when I arrived, the whole city had been flattened. I did not know then, but 73,000 people were dead.
It normally takes me ten minutes to walk from the bus station to my home, but it took me an hour and a half to climb through the rubble. I was seeing dead bodies everywhere around me, lying on the floor. I was just stepping over them – there was nothing I could do. I can remember being outside a school that had collapsed. There were kids there, under the rubble, screaming. The mums were outside, just crying. No one can even imagine. It was unbearable.
I passed the house of my friend. His arm was sticking out but I could see the rest of his body had been crushed. I had not seen him for a long time, but I could tell it was him by his watch. He always wore it.
The next door to my house was a family of eight, and six had died, all of them children. I am thankful most of my family escaped, although my uncle and cousins were killed. When I arrived, I found the others in a graveyard. They had been sheltering there for three days– it was the only safe place. The women and children huddled underneath a plastic sheet while the men held the four corners. It was raining all day and all night.
I don’t know how they survived. Some people were breaking shop windows and taking food. They had no choice. My brother even had to go back to my house at one time to get some rice, even though the ground was still shaking.
It was terrible, especially for the kids. Kashmir is very mountainous and tough, and in October it rains very hard. My daughter was one and a half years old. She was crying and crying. Now she is four she doesn’t remember anything. I am happy about that. I will never tell her about it.
After a few days when the international media knew what was happening, food began to be dropped from helicopters. Pakistan’s emergency services only came after two weeks. There is no fire brigade, no infrastructure, nothing. Only the NGOs were doing anything to help. The army came eventually, but they helped the soldiers in the barracks first. I felt ashamed.
After two weeks everything smelt awful, because of the rotting bodies all around. People were beginning to agitate. The first week they had just wanted to get their loved ones out of the rubble, but then things went wrong. Many children were kidnapped, for trafficking, and many women were raped. These people came in from other parts of the country. They had guns, so there was nothing you could do. They were not behaving like humans. People lost their religion. They said that God had left us.
Looking back, I don’t want to remember the scenes that are in my imagination. I just feel so thankful to God that I am alive. I know now that what is important is the people you love. Many people in Pakistan believe the earthquake was a punishment. I don’t believe it. I believe there is a reason that we cannot know.
For me, it was a very crucial moment. Before the earthquake I wished to study mathematics. Now I realise I need to help my country. When the earthquake happened we were helpless. I want to make sure that if this ever happens again we are prepared.
I am studying my masters in disaster management and then I want to return to Pakistan and work with the government to help introduce a system for dealing with these disasters. My wife is happy because she wants to be with her family. We do not care about material things anymore.
1 Comment
March 18, 2009 at 12:04 pm
A moving account of an unimaginable horror. Good luck to Him