When his education hopes came crashing down
Loss of father and two siblings thrust school-going Waleed into the role of family breadwinner.
MIRPUR:
For survivors of the devastating 2005 earthquake, its 7th anniversary refreshed painful memories of their harrowing ordeals.
Muhammad Waleed, now a 22-year-old resident of the quake-hit Gohter village in Muzaffarabad, lost his father, an elder sister and an elder brother to the calamity. Over 200,000 people live in Gohter and its adjoining quake-hit villages.
“I was class 9th student at the time… I was at school when the earthquake hit and the building’s roof caved in… there were pools of blood everywhere, a lot of students lost their lives and many more were badly injured,” he told The Express Tribune in an interview on Saturday.
“Luckily I survived, albeit with severe injuries, but my elder brother and sister weren’t so lucky… It was terrifying to see them, along with other students, crushed under the rubble of the school building,” he added.
Continuing his recollection of that fateful day seven years ago, he said his father Muhammad Suleman had been in Muzaffarabad city for a job when the quake hit. He too lost his life, he said, adding that his body was discovered three days later amid rubble on the roadside.
Waleed says the catastrophe deprived him of his drive for education. Following the deaths of his father and elder siblings, he was thrust into the role of the family breadwinner. He now works as a daily wage labourer.
“My desire for learning is still there… I really want to resume my studies, from the class I left.”
Like many other survivors whose lives were disrupted in the aftermath of the earthquake, he requires financial support. Only then, he says, he would be able to resume his studies. Till then, he remains a reluctant head of the family, with his younger siblings and widowed mother completely dependent on him.
Muhammad Safeer Awan is another earthquake survivor who, like Waleed, found his life completely changed for the worse in the aftermath of the calamity. Two of his brothers sustained serious head injuries which left them paralysed. Two of his uncles and an aunt lost their lives as well.
Safeer was in Abbotabad when the earthquake struck. He recalled he travelled five hours on foot, just to reach his village Mai Dhani Sahiba in order to find out the fate of his family members. Many of his relatives went missing after their residences turned to rubble and slid into the Jhelum River, which passes through the hilly resort.
Safeer was disappointed at the slow pace of reconstruction work in the quake-hit areas, including his village. He told The Express Tribune that lackluster rehabilitation efforts could not restore the areas’ pre-‘October 8, 2005’ life. People still face a complete lack of civic amenities, including roads linking his village and others to Muzaffarabad. He added that the government should accelerate reconstruction initiatives in the region if it was sincere about alleviating the sorrows of the earthquake survivors.
Edited by Zeeshan Ahmad
Published in The Express Tribune, October 8th, 2012.
For survivors of the devastating 2005 earthquake, its 7th anniversary refreshed painful memories of their harrowing ordeals.
Muhammad Waleed, now a 22-year-old resident of the quake-hit Gohter village in Muzaffarabad, lost his father, an elder sister and an elder brother to the calamity. Over 200,000 people live in Gohter and its adjoining quake-hit villages.
“I was class 9th student at the time… I was at school when the earthquake hit and the building’s roof caved in… there were pools of blood everywhere, a lot of students lost their lives and many more were badly injured,” he told The Express Tribune in an interview on Saturday.
“Luckily I survived, albeit with severe injuries, but my elder brother and sister weren’t so lucky… It was terrifying to see them, along with other students, crushed under the rubble of the school building,” he added.
Continuing his recollection of that fateful day seven years ago, he said his father Muhammad Suleman had been in Muzaffarabad city for a job when the quake hit. He too lost his life, he said, adding that his body was discovered three days later amid rubble on the roadside.
Waleed says the catastrophe deprived him of his drive for education. Following the deaths of his father and elder siblings, he was thrust into the role of the family breadwinner. He now works as a daily wage labourer.
“My desire for learning is still there… I really want to resume my studies, from the class I left.”
Like many other survivors whose lives were disrupted in the aftermath of the earthquake, he requires financial support. Only then, he says, he would be able to resume his studies. Till then, he remains a reluctant head of the family, with his younger siblings and widowed mother completely dependent on him.
Muhammad Safeer Awan is another earthquake survivor who, like Waleed, found his life completely changed for the worse in the aftermath of the calamity. Two of his brothers sustained serious head injuries which left them paralysed. Two of his uncles and an aunt lost their lives as well.
Safeer was in Abbotabad when the earthquake struck. He recalled he travelled five hours on foot, just to reach his village Mai Dhani Sahiba in order to find out the fate of his family members. Many of his relatives went missing after their residences turned to rubble and slid into the Jhelum River, which passes through the hilly resort.
Safeer was disappointed at the slow pace of reconstruction work in the quake-hit areas, including his village. He told The Express Tribune that lackluster rehabilitation efforts could not restore the areas’ pre-‘October 8, 2005’ life. People still face a complete lack of civic amenities, including roads linking his village and others to Muzaffarabad. He added that the government should accelerate reconstruction initiatives in the region if it was sincere about alleviating the sorrows of the earthquake survivors.
Edited by Zeeshan Ahmad
Published in The Express Tribune, October 8th, 2012.