'We cannot save everyone. We can only have a chance of making some

IT was a surreal scene. Set against a backdrop of near apocalyptic devastation on the outskirts of Balakot town, a group of Pakistani soldiers crouched on their haunches, each of them placing pebbles one by one into a tiny fissure in the ground. By any reckoning, an insanely pointless attempt at repairing an insignificant crack on a tarmac road, caused by the earthquake that has laid waste to this vast mountainous region.

As they worked, everywhere around them, barely yards away, thousands of people were fighting for survival; digging out dead loved ones; bleeding; crying out in pain; huddling in fear and trauma; trawling through the ruins of their lives.

Why? What compelled these soldiers to do such a bizarre thing amid such mayhem and suffering?

Was it stupidity, callous indifference or a reluctance to get involved?

Perhaps it was a perverse coping mechanism, allowing them to block out the scale of the destruction and suffering all around them?

Whatever their reasons, it's only one of many snapshots that sticks in my mind from the last 10 days of covering this, the worst natural disaster in Pakistan's history, and perhaps logistically the most difficult humanitarian crisis the world has ever had to tackle.

For, in a strange way, the actions of the soldiers seem almost symbolic of the challenges facing those endeavouring to plug the gaps in the fallout from this enormous catastrophe, and all with limited resources.

Again and again here, the talk among senior aid workers on the ground, is of the "closing window of opportunity", the "winter factor" and the difficulties faced by the "complex terrain". Then, of course, there is the sheer weight of human numbers; injured, displaced or dead. At least 79,000 lives lost; more than three million with nowhere to go.

"Sometimes it feels like a bottomless bucket, you pour things in and more is instantly needed, or you identify one problem you can handle and 20 more rise up simultaneously, " said Dorothy Blane, country director in Pakistan for the relief agency Concern Worldwide.

It wasn't the first time I'd met Blane, a fellow Scot, and veteran of quakes in Afghanistan and countless humanitarian crises from Africa to Cambodia. Possessed of a boundless energy and can-do approach, she and her tireless staff are under pressure like never before. The clock, they kept telling me, is ticking.

"We have to be realistic, we can't save everybody. So I just tell the staff to focus on the job in hand, that way we at least have a fighting chance of making some difference, " she told me at the end of yet another punishing day, during which her team had been distributing hundreds of badly needed winterised tents.

As ever in such horrific events, it is individuals and their all- too painful stories that best help us to understand what lies behind the headlines and what really is at stake.

True stories, like that of 62-year-old farmer Ghulam Ali, who had walked 10 miles across some of the roughest, most inhospitable terrain in the world, only to then pick up a single bag of rice at a distribution point, before turning around and going all the way back to his village north of Balakot. As the only surviving male among eight other members of his family, his wife, daughters and granddaughters were all depending on his return.

"There was a time when I could've carried much, much, more, " he tells me humbly. "But age is against me, and my leg is painful after a beam fell when our house collapsed."

Ghulam's two mules were killed in the quake, so now he alone must carry the burden of survival for his family, if they are to make it through the snows that creep down the surrounding peaks daily. Can his family see it through the winter, I ask him?

"With Allah's help and at least one mule, we can start again, " he replied with tremendous dignity, shaking my hand before turning towards the mountain path that led back to his family, the rice bag lashed to his back. There are few peoples in the world tougher than those who inhabit the northwest frontier province and high Himalayan region of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. If there are such things as heroes, Ghulam Ali is one of them.

The young too have their stories. Hassan and Mohammed Aziz are barely in their teens. Ruddy faced and wearing filthy shalwar kameez and battered trainers on their feet, they had hiked for two days only to find Balakot levelled. It was another two days before they received some plastic sheeting, rice and cooking oil.

"I still can't believe what my eyes see here in Balakot. It would not be good for my mother and father to know about this, they think that help is here and that the town is still alive, but there is nothing, " said Hassan.

Even after two weeks since the quake, walking remains the only way to reach many of the remote and cutoff communities, and helicopters are often unable to land where communities sit perched 15,000 feet up on mountainsides that drop away into the abyss. Aftershocks like the three that shuddered across the northwest frontier last Wednesday, have only added to the problem of access, and leave survivors' nerves frayed.

One of the most powerful of last week's tremors struck as I flew in a US Army Chinook over the Kunshai district, north of Balakot. The area is almost directly on top of the main October 8 quake's epicentre. Peering out from the chopper, we watched as boulders and whole sides of mountains tumbled and slipped, piling up on the lifeline routes below.

The US crew, more used to flying combat missions in neighbouring Afghanistan, were scheduled to make three drops, but only one of them had a landing area safe enough for the twin-rotored helicopter. As we hovered not more than 20 feet from the ground, the crowd below us was a pitiful sight, huddling together, cold and wind-swept. Some were injured, dried blood staining the makeshift bandages wrapped around heads, arms and legs.

"I'm the safety pilot, " explained Major Ahmed Masood of the Pakistan Army's Aviation Corps, whose job it was to help guide his American colleagues through the terrifying ravines with which he was well familiar, and to assess whether a landing posed any security risk.

It was somewhere between the villages of Kagan and Naran, that the Chinook dipped before settling on a dusty plateau. As we began unloading tents, bags of food and cooking utensils, a desperate crowd gathered around the US air crew and Masood, who tried to keep them from swamping the aircraft.

"Take my mother with you, she will die here, " pleaded one man, as he and a friend laid a makeshift stretcher down in the dirt on which lay a semi-conscious elderly woman, her badly broken leg lying at a macabre angle. More and more people lurched forward and scuffles broke out over the supplies.

Already on one occasion over the past few days, a similar situation got out of control, resulting in the death of a local Pakistani aid worker. It was just after a helicopter had touched down that crowds surged forward, and Javid Khan, who was trying to bring people forward for medical evacuation, was tragically caught beneath the still churning rotor blades and decapitated.

"Look, look, my daughter, she needs a doctor, the hospital, please sir, help us, " another local man, Ali Nabi, asked, thinking I was a doctor and tugging at my sleeve as his eyes filled with tears. Moments later, Ali, his three-year-old daughter Rafia, the elderly woman and a few other injured were on board and the Chinook lurched and flew off, leaving behind the heartbreaking looks of despair of those still on the ground.

It seemed somehow grotesque that within 45 minutes' flying time from such suffering, it was possible to sit in an air-conditioned Islamabad hotel next to tinkling fountains and eat tender chicken tikka and chilled bottled water.

Strange contrasts and snapshots are the hallmarks of this crisis. But just as the human battle for survival will reach a crucial pitch in the high Himalaya in the coming weeks, so too does the political battle for Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.

Already a war of words - and deeds - has broken out between his government and spokesmen of various Islamist parties, some of which have links to banned militant groups.

According to the Islamists, Musharraf and his administration stand accused of everything, from negligent control over building regulations to encouraging artists and celebrities to raise donations across Pakistan for the quake appeal.

"Singing and dancing are incompatible with people dying, " accused Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami, one of the biggest and best organised of the parties.

Perhaps more sinisterly, Jamaatud-Dawa, an offshoot of the banned militant group, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, and known for its pro-Taliban, proKashmir and jihadist views, has moved quickly to capitalise on their standing within the region, by becoming the face of relief efforts in areas where the Pakistan government has been slow to penetrate.

Unsurprisingly, Musharraf is keen not to be politically outdone, and in need of being seen to be in charge of the relief operation.

Perhaps with this in mind, last Wednesday he announced his readiness to open up the ceasefire line of control, allowing Kashmiris from the Indian side to come and join aid efforts on the Pakistan side.

Just what will come of such gestures and moves, only time will tell.

But as winter rapidly approaches, time is something the people of the quake-devastated areas know is in short supply. At the moment, all that really matters for them is simply making it from one day to the next.

For generations, the beauties of Balakot have been talked about.

Pakistani children growing up heard about this beautiful place from their parents and grandparents.

Last week, clambering across its ruins, I met one local man, himself lucky enough to have survived the earthquake but who had lost dozens of his extended family.

"For over 60 years tourists have been coming to see Balakot, " said Dirdar Fani quietly. "Now they will not see it again for a hundred years."

NEED TO KNOW

Pakistan yesterday rejected a claim by Human Rights Watch, who have accused the military of storing tents in warehouses instead of distributing them to earthquake survivors. The accusation from the charity came as the UN appealed for more aid for earthquake victims.

The death toll from the disaster has now reached an estimated 79,000 and at least 3.3 million people are homeless. The UN has received only 27% of the dollars-312 million (GBP176m) it says it needs to cope with the disaster.

The UK announced yesterday that it is to send three heavyduty Chinook helicopters to Pakistan. Despite constant aid missions by 65 helicopters already in Pakistan, there are still around half a million people who have received minimal aid so far.

NEED TO KNOW MORE?

To donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee, which is organising the UK's response to the earthquake, visit www. dec. org. uk or telephone 0870 6060900

Copyright 2005 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.