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| October 15, 2005 | Saturday | Ramzan 10, 1426 |
Goods are there but no system to distribute it
DHIRKOT, Oct 14: Relief goods have started reaching the quake- stricken areas in Azad Kashmir but not to the people because no organized system exists to distribute it. Consequently affected people in remote villages continue to spend freezing cold nights in the open and without any relief.
Dhirkot, one of district Bagh’s tehsil which has a total population of 60,000 people, is yet to receive relief goods. So far the relief efforts had been focussed on urban centres such as Muzzafarabad, Rawalakot and Bagh.
Even suburbs of these three district headquarters have not yet received the attention of the government and the private sector relief organizations.
People who are voluntarily taking relief goods to the devastated region just follow media reports to determine where to go. As a result most of the rural areas in the earthquake hit districts remain neglected and keep waiting for the help.
Civil Medical Officer (CMO) of Dhirkot, Dr Iqbal, talking to Dawn said,”those who have luckily escaped this killer earthquake will die of the cold”. “Besides earthquake victims, I have started receiving pneumonia patients, people suffering from fever, cold etc, which could be only the tip of the iceberg as winter season has already set in,” said Dr Iqbal.
In response to a question, Dr Iqbal said,”we don’t need eatables, we only need tents, because it is increasingly becoming to sleep under the open sky”.
Within next six weeks, the region would start receiving snow fall and during December to February one can hardly move outside the residence, he said.
The tehsil level rural health centre, which had existed for the last so many years in name only, became active only yesterday.
Despite repeated reminders, there was no response from health ministry in Muzzafarabad and on the first day when the earthquake struck.
“In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, I had to stitch wounds with regular thread and needle, use people’s clothes as bandages because the centre was virtually without any kind of medicines,” Dr Iqbal said.
During a visit to Mohra and Bughsar, two major villages of Dhirkot tehsil, one saw people living in makeshift tents, which they had made by stitching used plastic sheets together.
Only one house in 100 withstood the force of the earthquake. All others were totally or partially destroyed. No one dares to sleep inside, as they fear another earthquake in the coming weeks. there will be another such an earthquake. Raja Mumtaz, 70, sat on a ridge looking at the ruins of the three houses in which his large family of 22 members lived. He mused whether he would be able to build new ones.
“All my family, two sons and one daughter were happily living in their homes, but on that tragic day, we lost everything,” he said.
Now the entire family lives in a makeshift tent, waiting that some day, they will receive proper tents from the government. A neighbour of Raja Mumtaz told Dawn the survivors did not put much faith in the promises of relief.
“Every day we hear news that the entire world is sending money for our help. So far we have seen none of it,” he said.
Mr Mumtaz also accused the local influential people of manipulating whatever relief had reached the area. “We do see trucks coming to the area, but nothing reaches to us,” he said, adding,”military or the civil government should coordinate the efforts so that supply should reach deserving people”.
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