"Life is no more than a dew drop balancing on the end of a blade of
grass. Indeed life shows us again and again how fragile that balance can be. It brings home the realization how important it is to live your life to the fullest and in the present moment, and to give of yourself, your time, your love, generously..."
“I called my mother who is visiting her brother and family in
Haripur. She said it felt like it was the end of times. All they could hear were pipes and walls shaking, earth moving so fast that it was hard to even stand up. Cries and loud prayers followed. It is really cold, bone chilling cold, in North-West Frontier Province right now. We still don't know how many loved ones we have lost. Everybody is in shock but through it all, as usual, neighbors are helping neighbors -- and everybody is a neighbor even if they don't live in the same city. We from North-West Frontier Province don't have much but whatever we have is there to help others. This is the way of North-West Frontier Province, the people with no pockets but big hearts.”
“I was sleeping and the earthquake woke me up. It was the most horrible scene because everything was shaking. I am a medical student and many of my friends are from Azad Kashmir. They went last week to meet their families and there is no news of them. I'm worried. I request everyone in Pakistan and around the world to please help these people. I thank all the countries who are helping Pakistan.”
When the earthquake took place I was asleep. I jumped out of bed and screamed for my family to run outside. Once everything had calmed down I got a phone call telling me that the Margalla Towers had collapsed. Having friends who lived in the building, I drove there at once. I had to park quite far away so I got out and ran. Then I saw it: The rubble that was my friend’s home. I immediately rushed and began digging. On that day I pulled out five people alive and seven who were dead. On the second day I was not allowed to help as the British rescuers had arrived. It seemed they were working in slow motion. They were taking too long. I left because I could not take the slow speed at which the work was progressing. Now it is five days later and my friends still have not been found.”
I had woken up early on the 8th morning, and then rushed to call my parents who have settled down in mom’s home town of Jammu after my dad retired from the army a few years ago. I got through to them almost 4 days after the earthquake struck. Mom says on the morning of October 8th, she had just sat down and was trying to get a file out from a chest of drawers. Dad came and sat on the bed next to her. Suddenly she felt a huge push that almost sent her sprawling. “For a moment I wondered if it was your dad seating himself on the bed that created that huge jolt, but then I thought, he doesn’t weigh 400 pounds, and that made me look up. At that point every thing started shaking.’ My parents left the house and came out. Soon after the phone lines went dead. Fortunately all my relatives in Jammu are fine, though old homes in some areas developed major cracks.
But 100 kms north of Islamabad in Pakistan was another story. I sat in disbelief watching stories and images of horrible devastation on CNN. According to reports, the killer quake of 7.6 magnitudes that hit Pakistan on October 8 was the bloodiest in the country's history and killed an estimated 23,000 to 40,000 people, injuring over 51,000 and rendering close to four million people homeless.
For Masud Khwaja a businessman based in Atlanta the quake has hit close to home with the loss of nine relatives and several still missing. “I have a lot of family in Muzzafarabad and Kashmir. I grew up in the valleys and spent a lot of time in Garhi Habibullah and Balakot where we would go for picnics by the Neelum river,” says Masud
Khwaja. “ Now we are calling day and night enquiring about missing relatives and friends and hearing different stories each time. “ Oh we think they are under the rubble, I think so and so is dead, no he did get out,” I hope and pray we keep hearing good news like we just heard about our nephew, a physician being alive and safe.”
In India the quake was responsible for about 1300 deaths, but we were spared the mammoth devastation suffered by several areas in Pakistan. The most horrific news was to see several schools flattened and hundreds of children dead, with bad weather making it difficult to reach the already difficult to access mountainous regions of Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Health services are in shambles according to Khwaja Shabbir the provincial director general of health.
In an interview Shabir said he was working in his office when the quake struck and spent three hours trapped under rubble before being saved. He said 80 per cent of his staff died and his office was destroyed.
"We're helpless in handling it on our own as right now we don't have a single hospital left in
Muzaffarabad, no medicine, no paramedic staff, nothing," he said.
Other reports said dead bodies and waste matters, debris and other sewage had polluted the river Neelum which is the main source of drinking water in the provincial capital
Muzaffarabad, officials said.
According to Dr Ramana
Dhara, an occupational environment medicine physician, several diseases that rage rampant after the earthquake, are measles, cholera, diarrhea, and respiratory infections from crowded and unsanitary conditions would add to the havoc ‘A very important aspect” says Dr Dhara ‘is the psychological problems
in the affected populations. These include post-traumatic stress disorders and grief reactions. There will also be complications of trauma including infection and disability.”
Dr Dhara is not new to tragedy of large proportions. He was already practicing in Hyderabad when the Bhopal gas leak happened in 1984. “I had already done some work on some environmental problems in Hyderabad and was called to Bhopal to give my assessment of the health situation.”
Dr Dhara was part of the Medico Friends’ Circle (an alternative health discussion group) and the group made recommendations on what they thought was good public policy for the government as well as the local authorities. “I felt completely defeated by what I saw there. The magnitude of the problem was beyond the training and qualification of Indian scientists though I can say here that perhaps no system in the world would have been able to handle a problem like Bhopal. There was much debate and division among Indian scientists about how the accident happened, what was the right treatment, etc. Twenty years later I found all the issues have still not been adequately dealt with.”
At that time, the tragedy propelled Dr Dhara to leave his practice, accept a fellowship in New Jersey to study occupational & environmental health further and then return to see if he could develop occupational environmental health there but the country was going through major changes and the tragedy had become such a huge political issue that the younger scientists were no longer interested in dealing with it. The older scientists had either retired or had passed away and today in 2005 “I still see a total apathy towards helping the victims or devising some long term treatment for their ailments, or even trying to find out what are the long term repercussions to the exposure to the deadly gas.”
While we are still struggling to absorb the enormity of the devastation of life and property and the huge rehabilitation process in Pakistan and to a smaller extent in India, my mind goes to the Katrina tragedy that happened end of August and people are still trying to come to terms with it even though the loss of life wasn’t as colossal. Dr Dhara went to New Orleans about 10 days after the hurricane hit the city followed by a second whammy from hurricane Rita.
Dr. Dhara went to New Orleans as part of a local occupational medicine group in Atlanta that was contracted to CNN for providing medical coverage to their employees out in New Orleans covering the tragedy.
“When we reached there we found that almost 60 percent of the city was still flooded, and had become a ghost town. We drove around at night through the neighborhoods, and found nothing but empty homes and darkness due to lack of electricity. There were flood water marks on the cars and the house walls so you could see exactly how the water had started rising and how it had receded. We also visited the eastern part of the city which had borne the brunt of the eye of the hurricane. It was about ten miles away and completely flattened. ‘The first part of the hurricane had uprooted homes and trees and the second part caused the debris to fly dangerously. We met a family that had decided to stay home and ride out the storm and they were able to tell us how terrible it was. One of their homes had been uprooted along with the trees and floated away, but they were able to survive.”
Dr Dhara added, “The CNN crew was coming to us complaining of eye and throat irritation. Evaluating the dangers they would be exposed to helped us evaluate what the city would face in case of an early return by its citizens, wanted by the Mayor.”
Dr Dhara says the team found out that the landfills had flooded and there could be a risk of hazardous waste spilling all over the place. ‘The cars that went under the water may have released toxins such as fuel oils and heavy metals. There may be a risk from toxins that may be present in the sediments and in the case of a quick repopulation, would cause tremendous danger from exposure for children the elderly and anyone with suppressed immune systems. The EPA actually found evidence of fuel oil contamination in the flood waters.”
Dr Dhara added that it is going to take several months for normalcy to return to the city and stresses that since most of the population is outside the city, this is the time to educate them and send out a powerful public health message advising them against returning to the city until each neighborhood is cleaned out systematically of the toxins and the city is cleaned up. “Allowances can be made for adults to come in briefly to check on the
damage to their property or retrieve valuables, but unlike the mayor who wants people to return quickly, I would advise against it. Another reason I don’t want the people of New Orleans to rush back home is because I see parallels between the aftermath of the Bhopal tragedy and Katrina. The victims returned home in Bhopal and on re entering their houses were exposed to gas trapped inside all over again. I see the same problem with people wanting to return to Katrina. Until the city is cleaned of the toxins they will risk exposure and as it is the displacement and death that has already occurred has been bad enough. Again unlike Bhopal the houses in New Orleans have suffered structural damage as well, so you never know what may come apart. “
As we go to press, I see reports that all rescue teams have now given up hope of finding any one alive in the rubble and have now decided to switch to relief operations for the survivors. The Indian government has sent their second cargo of supplies and several business houses have offered aid in both cash and kind. I even read reports of Indian soldiers cross over the LOC to pull Pakistani soldiers trapped under a bunker after the quake hit.
I had written this last December after the Tsunami struck, and today as we recall the Bhopal tragedy that is still an unresolved issue, Katrina’s painful aftermath and now the tragedy of this massive earthquake, I’m compelled to rewrite this again. There is a popular Buddhist saying in
Srilanka,’ according to an email written by Paul Sussman “life is no more than a dew drop balancing on the end of a blade of grass.” Indeed life shows us again and again how fragile that balance can be. It brings home the realization how important it is to live your life to the fullest and in the present moment, and to give of yourself, your time, your love, generously. It took 90 seconds for the Gujarat earthquake to turn princes into paupers, and less than a day to destroy villages and resorts and thousands of precious lives by the tsunami waves. October 8th wiped out thousands of lives within seconds as well. No one really knows what tomorrow brings or who will be at the receiving end of the wrath of life, so live it fully and with compassion and love for others.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in these columns are solely those of the writers and do not necessarily represent those of the editor/publisher.
