Balakot - epicenter

There was a 6.0 aftershock today. The same day I took a bus to Abottabad on the Karakorum highway to the Silk Road and reported to the organization Sungi, affiliated with OXFAM and Save the Children. They sent me to Balakot, which used to be a city, but now not a single house is left standing, bridges are broken or shifted and buildings demolished. The city had around 50,000 people, and the underlying Tehsil (county) had nearly 50,000 more, not accounting for the Nomadic population. It is as if a colossal bulldozer has decided to wipe out the entire village and leave concrete rubble behind. Buried under are rotting bodies and above there is unclean water, and tons of rubbish, refuse and unused relief supplies. Unfortunately, Balakot can't be build from zero, it will have to start from -10.

The town Balakot is a little way up the Kunhar River. Balakot was the scene of a battle in the continuing struggle between the Sikhs and the Muslim tribesmen in the early 19th century. The Sikhs, killed the Muslim leader Syed Ahmed Shah, here in 1831. His tomb is the green-tiled monument bear the Kunhar River. The tomb of Syed Ahmed Shah is damaged extensivly but the graves have survived.

It is a life changing experience. We are strictly forbidden to give any sort of direct aid. Our main job is to assess their needs. It is commonly believed that they will not survive snowfall, and all of this is temporary. We go to villages and write down what they need, give out paper slips. Later they send in their able-bodied to retrieve food or wait hoping we will deliver to them. We carry only limited supplies to villages. It is heart-breaking to see women and children beg for blankets and foods, when you have only slips of paper to give them.

We access their needs for 1 tent, 3 x blankets, 2 x chatai and food (67.5 kg rice, 7.5 kg lentils, 4.5 kg oil). The food supply is for a month only for a family of three, while the average family size here is seven.

Other then Balakot, there are other effected areas as well. The local estimate for the deaths is well over a 100,000. The population census is ongoing, and the missing people and the Pakistan Army jawans who have been killed are not counted because of LOC sensitivity issues. However, the death toll will be much higher once the winter sets in . . . The hardest thing is knowing that what you do is nothing but a drop in the ocean.