Message from Tayyab Syed:
Thanks a million for your tireless efforts to collect this huge amount, we all appreciate your efforts top help the survivors of earthquake. At our end, we are working hard to get the winterised tents ready and making sure that we distribute the relief goods directly to the effected families at their villages and houses.
On the first effort, we were 13 staff members with 2 doctors and 2 drivers. So in all 17 members at the camp. For relief goods we had taken many assorted items as we had no idea about what would be specificly needed. We took:
The medical supplies were donated to Dr. Hamid from pharmaceuticals in Peshawar.
On the first effort, as we drove from Lahore to Abbotabad in the night (Monday 10th October)- we were joined by another friend from Lahore who was also carrying 2 truck loads of relief goods but lacked the manpower to reach out directly to effected villages. We joined to form a larger team. In the early morning hours, the road to Abbotabad was jammed by trucks carrying relief goods donated by common people from all over the country. In Abbotabad we were joined by our friends from Peshawar (Dr. Hamid & his asst. Naik Mohammad), but it took us much longer to reach Mansehra due to such heavy movement of relief trucks. With the help of friends in Mansehra, we came to know that most of the relief trucks were heading for Balakot (Kaghan valley) and Muzaffarabad (Kashmir). After learning that the Siran valley is also badly effected and not much help has reached there - we decided to go there.
Siran valley is approached by KKH from Shinkiari village. Here we did not encounter the traffic rush, but as we entered the valley the destruction was everywhere. Yet the lower parts of the valley had been reached by Pakistan Army and they were diverting relief goods. The army had approached as far as Dhadar village and were working beyond the village to open the road blocked by numerous landslides. After consulting the Army and locals, we decided to put our base camp in Dhadar village.
Next day early morning we moved out of our camp with medical supplies packed in our day packs, and as road had been cleared beyond Jaburi village, we took the road till next major landslide and then walked to the villages that have been waiting for relief teams. We put the first medical camp in Sacha village. As no doctors has reached the village so there was much do do. Within half an hour, the news spread to surrounding villages and we were busy basically with washing & disinfecting the wounds of injured survivors. As they had no or little medicine so they has just covered the wounds with cotton clothes. We had to remove all these insufficient dressings, wash the wounds with Payodin, to scrap out the gangrin and then apply proper medicines and make fresh dressings. It was very hard to start with, yet with guidance by Hamid and Naik - soon we could overcome the tremors of our hearts and the screams of injured. We sent back the patients with a week's supply of dressings, medicines and antibiotics and briefed the villagers about the importance of cleaning the wounds everyday to avoid infection. By late afternoon serious patients had stopped coming and we were down to minor aliments as headaches, diarrhea and flu - the medicines for these were plenty and we gave the same to them. We worked out the basic relief goods' requirement for the village and then gave them paper slips that they could take back to road head and claim the goods from our trucks. We started walking back to the base camp by early evening.
Then it turned out to be our standard procedure for the next days, as the major landslide would take 3 days to clear. We worked next in the villages of Nawaz Abad, Jabbar Nala and Jabbar Gali. As we started to walk to camp from Jabbar Gali, one of the last villages, we got the happy news that the road would be open by next day. By this time we had exhausted our supplies of goods and medicines - so we decided to end our work there.
It was important to distribute the goods within the villages, as most of the relief trucks stop at the roads and the start distributing goods then & there. In this way the deserving people surely miss the chance, and the people living near the road get more then their fair share. We could not blame those getting extra supplies as most are poor - they had started to stock supplies for the long winter, But surely its was not fair on those far off villages that had not received anything. army had also adopted the method of first accessing the need and then issuing the relief goods from their camp. I trust this is the best way to make sure that your efforts are not wasted on stockers.
Most of the houses in the upper villages had been flattened by the quake, and the rest were not in living condition at all. This has forced the people to live out in the open as the area is still receiving tremors as well as sizeable quakes. It is not easy to be there when you can experience jolts every 2 hours, and see the landslides getting active on the strong ones. In this area most of the dead bodies had been recovered and buried by the villagers, yet still you could not miss the prevailing smell of death. We all used masks & gloves while working and walking through the areas. The smell comes from dead animals trapped under the boulders and houses' debris - we did persuade them to take these animals out & to burry them - as this could ultimately result in epidemics for the survivors. Now people have started to take control of their situation.
On our way back, we also visited Thandiani, above Abbotabad – as we know well the locals there who supply us with their horses on trek to Nathiagali.
We returned on 17th evening after exhausting our stock of relief goods and medicines, now working only on getting made/collecting winterized tents.
Now for the second phase we are concentrating only on TENTS for the survivors. This is the basic need at the moment, as winter is approaching fast and most survivors are without proper shelter. The scale of destruction is too big for our small efforts - yet if we can help provide shelter to survivors then surely we can help them bear out the tough winters.
We are thankful to all our dear friends who will make our second relief effort possible with their generous donations.
Khuda Hafiz
Tayyab
For The Team of Karavan Leaders Pakistan
