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Today reporter Matthew Grant writes the newsletter whilst travelling through Pakistan.
Monday:
We鈥檙e waiting for visas. I had assumed the Pakistani government would welcome aid workers and the media alike, but since the earthquake they have proved reluctant to issue any more visas to the 91热爆. Finally, around lunchtime, there is a change of heart. I rush to the High Commission and on to Heathrow, in time to catch the evening flight.
On the plane, I talk to a British-Pakistani doctor. He and his wife are planning to go to remote villages in the Rawalakot district, which they know well. None of us know at this stage just how much they will be needed.
We talk about how many children have died. I ask why this was. The doctor says it was because the earthquake happened in the morning when children had just arrived at their schools. And, he says, many schools were badly built, because of corruption. This may well true. But I remember many children died in the tsunami as well. The explanation I heard then was they were playing on the beaches when the wave struck. Thinking about it, there is a far simpler explanation. Children die in natural disasters because they are small and vulnerable.
Tuesday:
Islamabad looks exactly as I remember it. I join up with a 91热爆 team and we drive up the Kashmir road to Muzaffarabad. The road signs say the distance is 125km, about 80 miles. It takes us seven hours. The road is crammed with vehicles, particularly vans loaded with food and other emergency supplies.
These are private aid efforts. It is Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. During this time, Muslims fast during the day. They also perform acts of zakaat, or charity. This phenomenon of mass zakaat is inspiring to behold; but will it be what is needed?
When we arrive I talk to people clustered around some of the vans handing out aid at the spot where the 91热爆 has set up camp. Everyone says people need tents. While there is a fair amount of food and water and even medicine, there are few tents to go round.
Wednesday:
We are camping next to a row of collapsed houses. When dawn breaks, I get my first proper look at them. These were substantial buildings but they have collapsed in upon themselves, not falling over but squashing down, as if they had been stamped on.
Not far away is the official residence of the Prime Minister of Pakistani Kashmir. It too is badly damaged. It is tempting to read this as symbolic. During the next few days I will hear many locals complain they are living in a state with no one in charge.
We drive round the city. A large park in the centre has become a makeshift helicopter base and field hospital. The drone is deafening: helicopters come in and take off constantly. People wander into their path. Around the perimeter, the injured lie on stretchers. Many have broken bones, head injuries or lost limbs. Often they have been carried for days to get here. For now they wait for a helicopter to take them to a hospital.
Later we go into the city centre. We find a major rescue operation taking place in the national bank. A Korean team is helping the Pakistani army. They have heavy lifting machinery and sophisticated searching technology 鈥 but watching them it becomes apparent how painfully slow the task will be. This is one destroyed building amongst many thousands.
A shout goes up from across the road and everybody runs over. The word is somebody is trapped under a building. When we arrive it turns out to be a father and two of his friends searching in the rubble of the college where his son studied. He knows his son must be in there, but no one has heard or seen him. The Koreans try to find any sign of life with their equipment. There is none. They decide to leave. Every building has dead people hidden inside. We watch the local men search on their own with nothing but their hands. It is hopeless.
Next we try to get out of the city to find out what has happened in the villages. Every road we try is blocked by heavy landslides.
Listen Again: More on the Asian quake from Matthew Grant, who has travelled from Islamabad to Muzaffarabad, Pakistani administered Kashmir.
Thursday:
In the morning, the United Nation鈥檚 humanitarian coordinator, Jan Egeland, arrives in a big white helicopter. He has come to see the disaster for himself. Does he think the emergency response has been too slow? Not surprisingly, he answers diplomatically. He stresses the challenges of the mountainous terrain. This is undoubtedly true. But the locals are increasingly angry and feel let down.
Over and over again, they rush up and ask to speak to us, their thoughts and feelings rushing out of them in a mixture of Urdu and English, anger, emotion and incomprehension tumbling over one another.
鈥淵ou鈥檒l use my interview,鈥 they say, when they have finished. I say yes, although, usually, I won鈥檛. We journalists are not there to help. If we want to justify our intrusion we have to believe our attempt to tell these people鈥檚 stories will encourage others to assist. But at times, I think, there is a value in just listening.
Back at the 91热爆 base I stop for a moment and talk to a colleague. We watch the helicopters swoop over us as they come in to land. We speculate it is only a matter of time before one of them crashes and adds to the death toll.
Later in the day I go back to the helipad and ask the general in charge if he will let me go up in a helicopter. He says it is impossible, tells me to wait, then comes over, puts his arm round me, leads me into the middle of the field and five minutes later we are taking off. This is how things often happen in Pakistan.
Flying low over the Jhelum Valley, I realise it is even worse than I had thought. The destruction in the villages is total. And it is clear next to nothing by way of aid has yet reached the villagers.
Our flight does not land. Instead we throw out sacks of aid. As we do, streams of people emerge from the mountain sides in all directions and run up towards the narrow, steep paths towards us; but by the time they have arrived we have already gone.
Listen Again: Matthew Grant in Pakistani city of Muzaffarabad reports on the quake relief co-ordination there. Disasters Emergency Committee's Brendan Gormley comments.
Friday:
I am keen to see properly what conditions are like in the remote villages. It is clear the only way to get there will be to walk.
We drive as far as we can back into the valley, stopping first at a village which is accessible by road. There the people have lost loved ones, relatives and friends 鈥 a whole generation of school children is dead and remains trapped inside the school 鈥 but they are beginning to start again. How they will cope in the future with their loss and trauma is anyone鈥檚 guess, but they already have tents, food and water; albeit nowhere near enough to go round.
We reach what is now the end of the road in the direction of the Line of Control, the disputed Kashmiri border between India and Pakistan. A pile of boulders reaches up into the sky. People scramble over it, carrying what they can. A short while further there is another, then another.
A soldier tells our driver, who is also our translator, the road is dangerous. Bandits have robbed aid workers and injured them. The driver does not want to come with me. I leave him and a colleague and go on alone. I am not particularly worried about being attacked. My impression is these people are gentle and friendly. More importantly, unlike in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan and the Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan, they do not appear to be heavily armed. However, I am concerned I will get there and find no one speaks English.
By sheer luck, as I cross a rickety suspension bridge to arrive in a village I meet a man coming the other way. He greets me 鈥 and it is immediately clear he speaks English fluently. He has much to do, but he graciously offers to show me round.
Again it is worse than I had imagined. Injured people lie on beds, their wounds untreated and badly infected. A group of women sift through a handful of pulses to make daal with which they will try to feed a village. The helicopters overhead seem a world away.
Saturday:
Back in Islamabad, it hits me. Out there, we keep working and only at a few still moments does the true awfulness make itself felt. Back in the normal world, I find it hard to stop thinking about it. I have spent less than a week in the earthquake zone. Now winter is coming. For the local people, escape is not an option. They will be living with the aftershock for a long time to come.
Listen Again: Hear the latest on the South Asia quake rescue efforts from Matthew Grant and Mike Wooldridge in Pakistan.
Matt
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