San Diego Union Tribune December 16, 2005 QUAKE AFTERMATH IN PAKISTAN 'When the snow comes, some will die' By Marcus Stern COPLEY NEWS SERVICE NELVIN CEPEDA / Union-Tribune Bibi Nargus' family is among those living in a tent village in Balakot's Belapudna neighborhood. BALAKOT, Pakistan – Bibi Nargus lost her husband, home and eldest son in the earthquake that rocked northern Pakistan two months ago. Today, she and her six surviving children sleep in a tent, sharing two blankets as they brace for the full onslaught of winter weather. They are residents of the Balakot neighborhood of Belapudna, 122 families that have set up tents next to their collapsed houses and apartment buildings in the commercial heart of Balakot. Next to their tents, they have buried their dead, a total of 110. They are like hundreds of thousands of other tent dwellers in the quake-affected areas of Pakistan's Azad Kashmir and Northwest Frontier Province. They are bracing for a cold winter they might not survive. During the day, they wash their clothes and dishes in a nearby stream. At night, when the temperatures plummet to below freezing, they shiver inside their tents. "The children wake up and cry at night because of the cold," Nargus said. "The worst is in the early morning when dew seeps into the tent and makes us wet and even colder." Overlooking Balakot, a snow-covered mountain serves as a reminder that before the month is out, dangerously cold weather and snow will arrive. At 3,000 feet, Balakot is in the foothills of the Himalayas. Wet snow already has fallen on villages at higher elevations, collapsing tents. NELVIN CEPEDA / Union-Tribune A boy and his mother sat amid the rubble of a hotel in Balakot, Pakistan, that was destroyed by an October earthquake. People here concede that some will not survive to see the spring. Some deaths will come quickly from hypothermia. Others will occur slowly. It will start almost imperceptibly, perhaps with a gentle cough. Colds and flu lead to pneumonia in these conditions, and pneumonia frequently results in death. The very young and very old are most at risk. "When the earthquake happened, some people died and some people lived. There was nothing we could do," said Muhammad Jan, 48, who lost his daughter in the quake. "And when the snow comes, some will die and some will live. There is nothing we can do about that either." After the Oct. 8 quake, the Pakistani army and relief organizations began a mad rush to get shelter to people in the affected areas. An estimated 3 million people were displaced. Tarps were initially handed out because more of them could fit on a helicopter than the much heavier tents that were distributed later. On the Internet For Union-Tribune photographer Nelvin Cepeda's narrated slide shows from Pakistan, go to: pakistan.uniontrib.com/hospital and pakistan.uniontrib.com/school/ Now they are struggling to get corrugated tin sheets, lumber and nails to elevations above 5,000 feet where the prospect of hypothermia is greatest. Lower-lying places such as Balakot are the next priority, but villagers say they have little expectation that the tin shelters, called sheet houses, will arrive in time. Unlike tents, tin shelters can stand up under the weight of snow and accommodate wood-burning stoves for heat. It is extremely dangerous to heat tents because they are highly flammable. Already, tent fires have killed and injured quake survivors and relief workers. "The tents are OK for the summer, but they are not enough for the winter," said Mustaq Khan, a resident of the Belapudna tent village. There is not enough money to build sheet houses for everybody. The typical tent has no floor. Generally, a sheet of plastic is placed on the ground. One blanket is placed over the sheet and the family sleeps in their clothes beneath a second blanket. Whatever belongings they might have are stored in the tent. Khan wears a coat provided by an Islamic charity called Al Mustafa. The same group has handed out coats throughout Belapudna. It also delivers tea, milk and buns to the camp in the morning and rice or lentils twice later in the day. "We are surviving only through this aid," said Zahd Khan, 29, who was still on crutches and in a walking cast after his leg was fractured during the quake. His mud house collapsed on him. His father and brothers pulled him from the rubble. Now, he and eight family members live in two tents in Belapudna. Like everyone else here, he said the cold awakens him at night and makes it hard for him to go back to sleep. It makes the nights seem endless, he added. And, like the others, he braces for the full onslaught of winter. "The snow will come. What can we do?" In the stream by the tent village, girls about the age of 6 wash dishes while older girls wash clothes. They feed discarded plastic sandals and tennis shoes into fires used to heat stream water. Then they put hot water, soap and dirty clothes into a large metal pan and march barefoot on the clothes as if they were squashing grapes. A van is parked nearby. Outside, the lettering says it is a "Swift Registration Mobile Unit." Inside, Khalid Mahoud sits with a laptop and camera. He works for the government and is registering earthquake victims and collecting casualty data. A teacher conducted an open-air class at the site of a collapsed primary school just outside Balakot. Roughly 120 children attend classes there. He says 70,000 to 80,000 people lived in Balakot before the earthquake and that half have died. The same figures are commonly cited by Balakot's survivors, though a Pakistani military official dismissed the number as inflated. It seems impossible for anyone to know for sure. Mahoud said the death toll will rise unless better shelter is provided. "The government better act quickly to put up sheet houses," he said. "The aid agencies can't do it." Al Mustafa is by far the most active relief agency in Belapudna. But other groups are busy in the quake-affected areas, including the International Committee for the Red Cross, Red Crescent, World Food Program, Save the Children and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Throughout the quake area, there are relief teams from a wide range of countries, including the United Arab Emirates, China, Korea and Germany. A team of doctors from Cuba is treating quake victims at hospitals in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The most visible U.S. relief presence in Balakot is a pair of Chinook helicopters flying supplies to the higher villages and bringing down refugees. Every day, the Chinooks pass over Balakot. Remarkably, a large number of people here say U.S. relief efforts – the Army Chinooks in particular – have generated good will toward the United States. The province was the site of daily anti-American rallies during the run-up to the U.S. strikes on the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan after the 9/11 terror attacks. Before Oct. 8, Gulzar Bibi lived in a five-room house with a TV, refrigerator, wood-burning stove and running water. Two months after the quake, she shares a canvas tent that has no floor with her daughter and 3-year-old granddaughter. "God gave us our home and God took it away," she said. "So it will be up to God how we live. I am not sad about losing the house. I am sad that so many precious lives were lost." The road south of Balakot along the Khunar River is lined with tent villages like Belapudna. Teachers sit on the ground and conduct open-air classes at the site of a collapsed primary school. The children, many dressed in coats, remove their shoes and take seats on a sheet of plastic. Then they run through their ABCs and math. They're being taught in English and their native language, Urdu. NELVIN CEPEDA / Union-Tribune Gulzar Bibi looked at the canvas tent shelter that she shares with her daughter and 3-year-old granddaughter and hopes will help them survive the brutal winter. Before the magnitude-7.6 quake shattered the city of Balakot, Pakistan, two months ago, Bibi had a five-room house with a TV, refrigerator, wood-burning stove and running water. Some parents have worried about sending their children to school at such a traumatic time. Their community is in shambles. Many have lost close relatives. Some are now orphans. And in some cases they are being asked to study alongside the fresh graves of scores of fellow students who died when classrooms collapsed. Two teachers conducting the outdoor classes say the students at first were distracted and disturbed. Now they seem to be throwing themselves into their lessons almost as a diversion from the surrounding horrors. Bibi Nargus' daughter Nellum, 12, resumed her studies in mid-November. She goes to school four hours a day and studies English, math, Urdu, Islam and social studies. She weeps at times over her father's and brother's deaths and worries about her mother's sorrow. For her, the return to school was a blessing. "It helps me forget," she said. Copley News Service reporter Marcus Stern and Union-Tribune photographer Nelvin Cepeda are on assignment in Pakistan and Afghanistan. »Next Story»