[Previous entry: "Nation taking a new look at homelessness, solutions"] [Next entry: "Only greater rights for women can end poverty, warns UN"]

10/13/2005:

"Sunk in Despair, Remote Villages Await Quake Aid"

BALAKOT, Pakistan, Oct. 12 - From the valley of death, they pointed to the far reaches of desperation. Over there in the village of Gunela, said Mushtaq Ahmed, pointing to hills under a mass of clouds, it is very cold, and there is nothing more than a bit of corn to eat. In a village called Khesarash, said Abdul Wahid, who had walked from there, children have died for lack of food.

From across the river came Imdad ul-Haq Mian, bearing on his shoulders a frail old man with a broken arm. With the road still blocked by a landslide, Mr. Mian and his kinfolk had trekked six hours through the hills, across loose, slip-sliding rocks, to bring the wounded from Dabriyan to a makeshift clinic here.

Balakot was once a pretty little village on the eastern edge of North-West Frontier Province, nestled in a green valley next to a gurgling river. Today it is a putrid, enraged, aggrieved place. All the houses have fallen in on themselves. Tents have arrived, but they are so scarce that one man said his was occupied by five families on Tuesday night. The suffering has made people lose their minds, one man said. The townspeople were fighting amongst themselves for the meager aid that had arrived, he said.
nytimes.com