I haven't forgotten yet!
It was early morning, the 5th of Ramadan, in Saudi Arabia and I was busy with my daily chores of chatting with friends and surfing since I was on a forced-to-take-a-semester-off break. At around 7:15am, my mom calls me to her room and points towards the TV. I quickly glance through the headlines of GEO and the concerned news of the hour. 7.6 is where i stop. I blink and look agian. 7.6! I fall down on my knees staring at the screen. Mom asks: "Kitna serious, umair?" I could barely utter, "Aap soch bhi nahi sakteen ammi. 7.6 is massive. ab kya..?" I'm still staring at the screen while ammi replies that "abhi tak 647 jaani nuqsaan bataya hai." I look back at ammi and say, "Allah rehm karay lekin mujhay lag raha hai..." I couldn't complete it. I ran to my computer and replied back on an aim screen to my friend in Virginia, where I typed brb 2 mins ago, that an earthquake has struck Pakistan measuring 7.6 on the richter scale. She confirms with me again and wakes her parents up after midnight and three hours before sehri to give this unfortunate news. They rush to the phone to contact their relatives in Lahore and that is when it all started...
News updates, fund-raising events on TV, checking Gupshup forum for even more updates and help queries, all the celebrity stars coming forth to help in some way, and everyone doing whatever they could to help the affectees of earthquake. This was it for next 20 days in our house.
Personally, being free all the time during Ramadan in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in those days made me follow all the updates on fund-raising and earthquake very closely. It was certainly an awe-inspiring feeling to watch so many Pakistanis all around the world uniting for the same cause. On ARY, it was Salman Iqbal and Fakhr-e-Alam coordinating the aid progress. I remember they aired their fund-raising marathons for most of the day on their channels. After a few days, people started to realize that affectees need shelter and food real bad and immediately because of degenerating weather conditions. Only money wasn't doing much. What to do with that money? It was taking time to buy shelter and food and clothing for people who had lost everything including their own guardians and loved ones. Every second was important. Time was running out. Fund-raising organizations and NGOs started to ask for needed first aid supplies and clothing and specific dry food items and the whole Pakistni qaum started brainstorming on how to transfer all the materials and what should we really be sending. These brainstorming activities were being steered by charity organizations that were based in the affected areas just for that purpose.Most of the roads were blocked by landslides so it was impossible to go beyond certain areas. This is where Pakistan army's jawaans chipped in and put endless efforts to transfer aid products to the affected areas. Needless to mention every name but so many celebrity stars and political organizations put everything they could to help. Prominent ones that actually went in the areas were MQM's Khidmat-e-Khalq foundation, Jamaat-e-Islami's Jamaat-ud-Dawa foundation, Abrar-ul-Haq's Sahara Trust, Shehzad Roy's Zindagi Trust alongside Director Amena Khan, Imran Khan's Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust/Tehreek-e-Insaaf foundation and etc. In fact, I remember the Travel Guide of Pakistan fame Wajahat Malik guiding various organizations and trekking by himself to get food and shelter to unaccessible areas. All in all, everyone was trying their best to do whatever they could. I was only being updated by media news and I was totally oblivious of what is actually going on in Pakistan in terms of physical aid. But I knew Walmart ran out of tents all across the major cities of United States. And I knew there were stocks of supplies in Middle Eastern countries collected by Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis waiting to be flown into the areas. It was just amazing to see everyone coming together to chip in anything they could.
Later, when I went to umrah at the end of Ramadan, I happened to bump into a Karachiite who was sitting right across Maqaam-e-Ibrahim in the roofless part of haram inside the mosque. We had a very deep conversation between Maghrib and Isha and he recounted the details of the activities he had witnessed in Karachi a little after 8th October. He left on the 13th for Makkah and wasn't aware of much after that but he certainly told me how crowded was PAF base and how Karachiites came together right away to help their fellow nationals. All barriers of ethnicities and provinces were broken and people rushed in with food and clothing and first aid supplies in PAF Base. By the night of October 8th, there was a strip of 1 mile of food and shelter across PAF that was waiting to be transferred in airplanes. It only went uphill in the coming days.
On October 24th, one of my friends wrote in her emails:
He has a purpose for everything that He does... May He give comfort to those who have lost their loved ones, hope for those who are alive, and peace to the countless parents and children who have lost each other.
I replied a week after:
No, I did not have any friends/relatives affected by the earthquake directly although we all have friends whose friends or relatives are affected somehow due to this large scale destruction. It is a massive toll of affectees. One of the positive points is that the remainder of the nation just stood up and helped as much as they could, in fact more than they could. I've been hearing stories, have been involved myself, have asked my friends to do so, and the response has been amazing. Whoever is asked, they counter-question that "what exactly can we do? We're all ready to do anything."
On the eve of October 8th, I posted this on a forum:
My country has been affected. I feel it to its depth. I don't think I can find words to express myself either. I keep watching news without uttering any word. I just couldn't believe it the first time that it was 7.6. Buildings just collapsed, people still under them, trying to find their way out. Imagine how many of them would be sole supporters of their families. It's so hurting. Effects are devastating and death tolls just keep on rising. I just keep wondering when will all come to halt? It's chaos everywhere and that too, a weeping chaos. People just can't do anything except praying; praying to Allah to grant them enough courage to take it courageously. The ones saved from this disaster are helping the injured and pulling out those who are still alive.
News updates, fund-raising events on TV, checking Gupshup forum for even more updates and help queries, all the celebrity stars coming forth to help in some way, and everyone doing whatever they could to help the affectees of earthquake. This was it for next 20 days in our house.
Personally, being free all the time during Ramadan in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in those days made me follow all the updates on fund-raising and earthquake very closely. It was certainly an awe-inspiring feeling to watch so many Pakistanis all around the world uniting for the same cause. On ARY, it was Salman Iqbal and Fakhr-e-Alam coordinating the aid progress. I remember they aired their fund-raising marathons for most of the day on their channels. After a few days, people started to realize that affectees need shelter and food real bad and immediately because of degenerating weather conditions. Only money wasn't doing much. What to do with that money? It was taking time to buy shelter and food and clothing for people who had lost everything including their own guardians and loved ones. Every second was important. Time was running out. Fund-raising organizations and NGOs started to ask for needed first aid supplies and clothing and specific dry food items and the whole Pakistni qaum started brainstorming on how to transfer all the materials and what should we really be sending. These brainstorming activities were being steered by charity organizations that were based in the affected areas just for that purpose.Most of the roads were blocked by landslides so it was impossible to go beyond certain areas. This is where Pakistan army's jawaans chipped in and put endless efforts to transfer aid products to the affected areas. Needless to mention every name but so many celebrity stars and political organizations put everything they could to help. Prominent ones that actually went in the areas were MQM's Khidmat-e-Khalq foundation, Jamaat-e-Islami's Jamaat-ud-Dawa foundation, Abrar-ul-Haq's Sahara Trust, Shehzad Roy's Zindagi Trust alongside Director Amena Khan, Imran Khan's Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust/Tehreek-e-Insaaf foundation and etc. In fact, I remember the Travel Guide of Pakistan fame Wajahat Malik guiding various organizations and trekking by himself to get food and shelter to unaccessible areas. All in all, everyone was trying their best to do whatever they could. I was only being updated by media news and I was totally oblivious of what is actually going on in Pakistan in terms of physical aid. But I knew Walmart ran out of tents all across the major cities of United States. And I knew there were stocks of supplies in Middle Eastern countries collected by Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis waiting to be flown into the areas. It was just amazing to see everyone coming together to chip in anything they could.
Later, when I went to umrah at the end of Ramadan, I happened to bump into a Karachiite who was sitting right across Maqaam-e-Ibrahim in the roofless part of haram inside the mosque. We had a very deep conversation between Maghrib and Isha and he recounted the details of the activities he had witnessed in Karachi a little after 8th October. He left on the 13th for Makkah and wasn't aware of much after that but he certainly told me how crowded was PAF base and how Karachiites came together right away to help their fellow nationals. All barriers of ethnicities and provinces were broken and people rushed in with food and clothing and first aid supplies in PAF Base. By the night of October 8th, there was a strip of 1 mile of food and shelter across PAF that was waiting to be transferred in airplanes. It only went uphill in the coming days.
On October 24th, one of my friends wrote in her emails:
He has a purpose for everything that He does... May He give comfort to those who have lost their loved ones, hope for those who are alive, and peace to the countless parents and children who have lost each other.
I replied a week after:
No, I did not have any friends/relatives affected by the earthquake directly although we all have friends whose friends or relatives are affected somehow due to this large scale destruction. It is a massive toll of affectees. One of the positive points is that the remainder of the nation just stood up and helped as much as they could, in fact more than they could. I've been hearing stories, have been involved myself, have asked my friends to do so, and the response has been amazing. Whoever is asked, they counter-question that "what exactly can we do? We're all ready to do anything."
On the eve of October 8th, I posted this on a forum:
My country has been affected. I feel it to its depth. I don't think I can find words to express myself either. I keep watching news without uttering any word. I just couldn't believe it the first time that it was 7.6. Buildings just collapsed, people still under them, trying to find their way out. Imagine how many of them would be sole supporters of their families. It's so hurting. Effects are devastating and death tolls just keep on rising. I just keep wondering when will all come to halt? It's chaos everywhere and that too, a weeping chaos. People just can't do anything except praying; praying to Allah to grant them enough courage to take it courageously. The ones saved from this disaster are helping the injured and pulling out those who are still alive.
May Allah help us heal. May Allah help us be a support for those that
need us most.may Allah grant patience to the families of those who are affected. Allah, please make it easy for them and let us help them in any way possible to cope with this disaster. Ameen
posted by feveri at
11:56 PM
1 Comments:
lies lies. where were you when people were gathering winter clothes, packing stuff, transporting from one place to another and all what the victims needed?
anyone can write a blog and talk about how he felt about it or how he was watching tv and lookin what people were doing about it but what all matters is how you helped the people who suffered. just by watching tv? posting a blog?
God Bless the World.
By
Anonymous, at 10/08/2006 10:28 PM
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