Sunday, October 16, 2005
Quake victims' plea: "We need shelter" - L.A. Times
... As soon as the crude lean-to was erected, Noman Shahid, 12, ducked inside and turned sad brown eyes, a runny nose and chattering teeth in silent appeal to Butt, lord of the newest manor. Perhaps the stranger would offer refuge to his family.
"We have no place to sleep except in the open," Noman said, shivering in the thin blue shirt of a school uniform that is his only clothing. The boy explained that his father and a brother died in the Oct. 8 earthquake, his mother was injured, and he and his three surviving siblings were too young to compete with the desperate men fighting for the occasional tent tossed from the back of an aid truck.
A week after the devastating 7.6-magnitude temblor that killed at least 38,000 people, tents are all that stand between quake victims dying of exposure or surviving the next week, never mind the looming Himalayan winter.
With proper tents in shockingly short supply in Muzaffarabad, a frantic building boom has beset this pulverized city, with the displaced scavenging corrugated metal sheets from the ubiquitous rubble to put roofs over their heads. Bedclothes, curtains and carpets hang from the crumpled metal, rippling in the wind but keeping most of the rain out.
In one pieced-together shelter, Abdul Rashid lamented the chaos and confusion that afflict the delivery of relief supplies. Aid workers fearful of being mobbed have taken to hurling their offerings from the back of moving flatbeds and pickups, sometimes lobbing the goods over the cinderblock walls of the soccer field, inciting a panicked scramble.
...
... As soon as the crude lean-to was erected, Noman Shahid, 12, ducked inside and turned sad brown eyes, a runny nose and chattering teeth in silent appeal to Butt, lord of the newest manor. Perhaps the stranger would offer refuge to his family.
"We have no place to sleep except in the open," Noman said, shivering in the thin blue shirt of a school uniform that is his only clothing. The boy explained that his father and a brother died in the Oct. 8 earthquake, his mother was injured, and he and his three surviving siblings were too young to compete with the desperate men fighting for the occasional tent tossed from the back of an aid truck.
A week after the devastating 7.6-magnitude temblor that killed at least 38,000 people, tents are all that stand between quake victims dying of exposure or surviving the next week, never mind the looming Himalayan winter.
With proper tents in shockingly short supply in Muzaffarabad, a frantic building boom has beset this pulverized city, with the displaced scavenging corrugated metal sheets from the ubiquitous rubble to put roofs over their heads. Bedclothes, curtains and carpets hang from the crumpled metal, rippling in the wind but keeping most of the rain out.
In one pieced-together shelter, Abdul Rashid lamented the chaos and confusion that afflict the delivery of relief supplies. Aid workers fearful of being mobbed have taken to hurling their offerings from the back of moving flatbeds and pickups, sometimes lobbing the goods over the cinderblock walls of the soccer field, inciting a panicked scramble.
...
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