GARHIDUPATTA: In parts of Pakistan still cut off five days after Saturday’s earthquake, people angrily dismiss government reassurances that help is on the way as the army struggles to clear landslides blocking roads.
Muzaffarabad was devastated and outlying areas suffered huge damage and numerous casualties but most parts have yet to be reached as landslides triggered by the quake have blocked or swept away roads.
A Reuters news team on Thursday trekked up the Jhelum valley, crossing six big landslides and passing numerous rock falls on a 10 kilometres stretch of road to reach the small market town of Gharidupatta, 25 kilometres east of Muzaffarabad.
The town at first appears remarkably normal. While most shops are shut, several tiny stores are open. A chemist, a shop selling flour and one selling live chickens are doing business, selling stock the owners say they had before the quake.
But a little further up the destruction is apparent and across the river most houses have been completely levelled. About 300 people were killed, residents tell what they say are the first reporters to reach their town since the quake.
While army helicopters have evacuated most of the injured, residents say they have received no aid.
Those with radios who heard a Wednesday night address by President Pervez Musharraf in which he explained the difficulties and how things would improve, were dismissive.
“He’s a liar,” said Sartaj Akhtar Abassi. “You can see people are still living in the open, there’s been no relief.”
All said their most important need were tents, not food. “Musharraf must be joking because we haven’t seen anything,” said Khawaj Abdul Majid. “We can accept aid can’t come on the first day, or the second day, but now it’s been six days.”
The road to Gharidupatta, which in British colonial rule was the only way into the Kashmir Valley and the city of Srinagar, now part of Indian Kashmir, is a two-way trail of sorrow.
Thousands are trekking through the mountains. Many were working elsewhere when the quake struck and are now rushing back to see their families, some refusing to believe relatives have been killed.
Coming the other way is a stream of people leaving their destroyed homes and graves of their relatives.
Many of them are bandaged and carrying children. Most lug huge bags or cases. One man was carrying an injured woman on his back down to Muzaffarabad.
All along the road, farm houses, schools and mosques have been destroyed. One school, its walls painted with cartoon characters and badly cracked, was the only one seen standing. A school bag lay abandoned on the doorstep.
Families are camped beside flattened houses. Bloated dead water buffaloes lie in the nearby river.
The mountain air carries the smell of death, perhaps from decomposing animals, perhaps from people under the ruins.
On some of short stretches of road between landslides cars are running, ferrying people as far as they can while overhead helicopters clatter up and down the strikingly beautiful valley.
Army teams are working in several places to clear the landslides but progress seems painfully slow. One soldier said explosives were being brought in to blast the road clear.
People from more remote areas are still bringing injured down, carrying them on simple rope beds.—Reuters
