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| December 3, 2005 | Saturday | Shawwal 30, 1426 |
Women survivors in state of desperation
BALAKOT, Dec 02: Women who survived the Oct 8 earthquake in Balakot but lost their male family members are traumatised and in a state of confusion and hopelessness. “I don’t know what to do to support my widowed mother and young siblings”, said Miss Saiqa, 21, a teacher by profession who lost her father in the disaster. She was teaching at the Shaheen Girls Degree College Balakot when the quake rocked the building. Four of her colleagues died and she and few other teachers survived but now they are worried about their future.
“Most of us did not have chance to get out of the building. I was hit by concrete blocks and fell unconscious and was rescued after two hours”, she said.
“I can never forget that horrible night when people were dying under debris and it started raining. There was nothing to cover the injured and dead bodies”, she added.
“Even now when we family members sit together, we discuss nothing but that day and talk about who lost who”, Saiqa said.
Another two survivors are Miss Faiza and Miss Shagufta who were also teachers in primary section of the Shaheen Girls Degree College.
Miss Faiza, 22, said that she was rescued at 10 pm. “Now there is no fun left in the life of all of us”, she said.
Miss Naida, a student of class 10th who lost her father in the earthquake, said that it was very difficult for her to get aid from distributors because she had neither father nor any elder brother to get into the mob of aid seekers, mostly males. She said many women and young girls who had lost their male members remained without aid for days as they could not get aid when it was distributed.
There are some 200 families in Muhalla Nara of Balakot and majority of them have lost their male members.
Miss Saiqa, Miss Shagufta, Miss Faiza have started teaching in ‘Shaheen Public School’ set up in tents by army at Nara. The number of children is insignificant in the school as parents are reluctant to send their children to a school. They also hate the name ‘Shaheen’ now.
“We used to put on make-up and wear best clothes before going to school where teaching was fun. But now I don’t feel need of even changing clothes because things are not the same anymore”, a gloomy Saiqa said.
After the quake, attitude of people have turned negative. “They have become selfish and miser and they do not share things in the neighbourhood. They even hoard clothes and food items in their tents”, Miss Naida said and added that many people had lost faith and become touchy and emotional.
Naida said that she was still afraid to go inside the room of her house which survived the quake.
Miss Shagufta said that she was suffering from sleeplessness and headache ever since she was rescued.
“I went to see a psychiatrist at the medical camp nearby. She gave me tablets which worsened my condition and I stopped taking the pills”, Shagufta said, adding she could not forget the scenes she witnessed that day and could not sleep all night.
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