Posted on 10/16/2005 8:30:32 AM PDT by liberallarry
The journey down from the mountainside had felt otherworldly to 15-year-old Faisa as she drifted in and out of consciousness in the cold mist. She remembers only the smell of aircraft fuel and the wind in her hair as she sat in the damp cargo hold of the Chinook helicopter, opposite the stretcher holding her younger brother Saeed.
Days earlier she had emerged from the baked mud and timber wreckage of her home, near the disputed Kashmiri town of Uri, gasping for air and in pain from severe leg and head wounds.
Among the first things she saw were the bodies of her parents, just two of the 38,000 or more killed by last Saturday's earthquake, which has also left two million homeless.
Beside the corpses, in their torn hessian burial shrouds, six-year-old Saeed sat digging his hands into the dirt and crying softly.
It had taken neighbours 48 hours to get Faisa and her brother out of the rubble, and two more days passed before the fog and torrential rain eased, allowing them to carry the children away from their village in a broken bed.
Yesterday Faisa was lying in Srinagar's Sri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital, 70km south of Uri, blood dripping into her veins from an IV bag, her right leg amputated just below the knee. Her voice hoarse and broken, she called for her brother. 'Is he dead?' she asked repeatedly. Nobody had an answer.
'The patients are coming too late and suffering gangrene in their wounds,' said Fazlur Khan, an orthopaedic surgeon who has performed dozens of amputations in recent days. 'Almost a week down the line, we are seeing many children - orphans like Faisa - trapped under the rubble for so long they develop gangrene. By the time they get to you it is impossible to save their limbs. You make a decision - you have to save the life of the patient.
'They have often had to rely on relatives carrying them for hours upon hours on foot to have a chance of survival. Even when they get to the field hospitals in the valley, they are waiting too long for helicopters.'
All but the gynaecology and paediatric wards at Sri Maharaja Hari Singh have been devoted to the emergency. Although the flow of patients was finally slowing yesterday, beds were still spilling out into the corridors. Doctors, assisted by medical students, have been working around the clock.
Dr Khan said that generally the emergency care given to patients in the field hospitals has been excellent, although sometimes, as with Faisa, over-tight bandaging and tourniquets by inexperienced medics have made things worse.
Back in Uri, salvaged prayer mats were being laid out on the roof of a flattened mosque as local men sought spiritual solace amid the rubble. 'God is angry with me, but I cannot turn against him,' said Mohammed Zahaid, 49, who lost his wife and three daughters. 'The prayers satisfy me. They lessen my pain. Such calamities bring Muslims closer to God and increase our faith.
Nowhere in the disaster zone is the futility of the military stand-off between India and Pakistan more evident than in the border town of Uri. Here, above a verdant Kashmiri plateau, Indian military helicopters shuttle back and forward along the sharp spines of mountain ranges, carrying the injured like Faisa and Saeed down the valley to safety. Elsewhere aid lorries move in slow convoys along the precipitous mountain passes, stopping abruptly only a few kilometres before the razor wire of the Pakistani line of control. The roads on the Indian side have been cleared by army JCBs and diggers, now idle after removing the debris caused by dozens of landslides.
Over the border, tens of thousands of Kashmiris remain stranded, still cut off from international aid by rubble-strewn roads. Barely three kilometres from Uri, in the Pakistani town of Bagh, locals hunt their loved ones in the remains of homes, offices and schools, hands calloused and bloodied by sharp rocks and splintered timber.
'We are desperate for heavy machinery: drills, backhoes, anything that can help remove the debris and perhaps save lives,' said Abdul Qayyum, a Bagh schoolteacher. 'The government should send heavy machinery so we can get bodies or save those who are still alive. If they can't help us, then let the Indian army over the border. They are only kilometres away. What is more important - politics or lives? We can hear the call to prayer from their mosques floating across the line of control. Their buildings are standing - they can help us.'
Qayyum , who was in his schoolyard in Bagh when the earthquake struck, said a quarter of its 800 students were buried when the classrooms crumbled. Nearly 100 bodies had been removed by yesterday - and a dozen survivors. Like others gathered around the remains of the school, he is adamant that pupils are still alive in there.
His anger is not directed at the cruel hand of nature but at the Pakistani government for doing nothing to help those trapped in the rubble. According to Bagh magistrate Raja Mohammad Irshad, his government has failed the people. 'We are not mourning our dead today,' he said. 'We are mourning our ties with the government. We are asking whether they think we are human beings, or animals, or non-living things.'
Across Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the international rescue effort has been severely hampered by treacherous mountain terrain and the huge landslides. Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf, has continued to speak of a lack of heavy transport choppers and appealed again and again to the international community for help.
According to Save the Children spokesman Sam Rush, it is in the border zones of Pakistani Kashmir that the victims of the earthquake remain most at risk. 'There is a desperate need to reach children and their families in the remote areas of Pakistan, particularly along the line of control with India,' he said.
'It is a week on, and aid is still not reaching remote hillsides. There is real danger that we will see further loss of life. Children lucky enough to have survived the earthquake have injuries that need urgent medical attention.
'We are getting increasing reports of children succumbing to exposure, and cases of gangrene are on the rise. There are hundreds and thousands of children for whom time is quickly running out. We urgently need more helicopters if we are to have any hope of saving them.'
As a result of the Pakistani government's failure to get aid to the most remote areas, Kashmiris living in towns like Bagh are turning for help to well-organised Islamic militant groups, officially banned by President Musharraf. In the mosques of Kashmir they are talking of a new jihad. Pakistan-based Islamic militants, who spent the past decade fighting Indian rule in the region, have announced a 'holy war' to help victims of the earthquake.
The United Jihad Council, a loose alliance of pro-Pakistan militant organisations, last week announced a temporary truce in the areas hit by the quake but warned it wouldn't allow Indian troops to carry out relief work in their territory. Jamaat-ud-Dawa, with past links to Lashkar-e-Taiba - blacklisted as a 'terrorist organisation' by the US - was also among the first groups to offer organised aid in Bagh following last Saturday's earthquake. The group's high-profile activities in recent days have angered the Indian military, reducing the already slim chance of it intervening in the area.
To make matters worse for Pakistani Kashmiris hoping to receive aid from the Indian side of the border, Islamabad has furiously denied newspaper claims that an Indian army patrol rescued Pakistani soldiers at a border post after a landslide flattened their bunker. 'There is absolutely no truth in it,' an army spokesman said. 'Indian soldiers have not crossed the line of control at any point, nor will this be allowed.'
The seemingly cursed valleys of Kashmir remain stuck in the same rut that has cost the lives of almost 80,000 people in the past decade. This 'tit for tat' cross-border diplomacy, described by one Indian newspaper yesterday as 'business as usual', could soon lead to the deaths of thousands more.
But our MSM screams about our failures and reports the curses of Muslims while hardly covering the earthquake aftermath.
I was under the impression that GENERAL MUSHARAF of Pakistan was a man who could organise and take control of any situation.....I must have read the socialist propaganda for too long.
Once again we see the lack of organisation in a muslim country......
It's an earthquake and Pakistan is a corrupt third world nation.
Also, I don't believe in a God that punishes by earthquakes, other natural disasters, bursting levees or "allowing" a******e" suicide bombers to exist.
It's very easy and entertaining, perhaps, to get into the habit of seeing these awful things as punishment when it happens to people we don't like but I always and always think of "There but for the grace of God go I." I pray for more compassion because I often fall into the aforementioned habit.
Now, forcing people to listen to Ethel Merman tapes -- THAT is punishment.
"Once again we see the lack of organisation in a muslim country...... "
Islam seems to promote the most incompetent to leadership.
As warlike as they want to be, islamic are dependant on non-muslims for their weapons, parts and repair. And thats a good thing for peoples who love freedoms
General Musharaf CAN organize, but I think that this is beyond his abilities. I think he's more prepared to deal with terrorists, rebels and other smaller events. This is too big for such a corrupt country. They put their money, training and time into staying in power, rather than in preparation for the on-going natural disasters.
All part of the corruption.
The lack of organization isn't because they are Muslim, it's because they are corrupt. There are PLENTY of similar countries that are NOT Muslim. Think of Central and South America. Think of Africa and think of MOST of the rest of Asia. Corruption is corruption--it's not a religous issue.
That's right...but Al Queda sympathizers and other rude Islamic fanatics characterized Katrina as punishment by God. Mine is a payback observation.
That's right...but Al Queda sympathizers and other rude Islamic fanatics characterized Katrina as punishment by God. Mine is a payback observation.
Trying to argue with insane fanatics is useless. Those same muslims who said Katrina was God's vengeance on us would be quick to tell you that the Mossad or the CIA has an earthquake machine. They live in their own fantasy world and they make it up as they go along.
The flooding and landslides in South America and Central America are closer to home, and I don't hear much outcry about how mismanaged these are, yet these people also need help, badly.
I am reminded constantly, that we live on a very unstable planet, and any one of us could be the next disaster. Natural disasters are inevitable.
Perhaps the money spent on nuclear arms, by a third world country, might have been better spent elsewhere?
More magic thinking. Just because they think a helicopter or heavy machinery would be helpful, somehow it is supposed to appear in remote mountains, and when it doesn't, get mad. Oh well. C'est la vie.
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