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The day seems to pass
so fast despite the fasting of the month of
Ramadan. We just don’t seem to have enough hours
in the day to be able to do all the work that
needs to be done. I didn’t get time to post
this until past Sehri today. I must congratulate
all our teams that are doing marvelous work.
Let me
summarize some of the key activities of yesterday,
i.e. 14th.
- The Petarian/Abdalian
team is the first relief team to reach this
remote valley of Bagh District. No other
team had gotten to this point so far. In
fact, there are many other similar remote
villages that have not received any aid
so far. Most of the aid teams have been
dumping relief aid material primarily in
the larger cities, while the countryside
and the villages have not gotten anything.
- Major Aamir, KAM
and their teams have been doing wonderful
work at the Samni village and its surrounding.
As the day dawned, there were over 600 injured
people at the camp seeking medical assistance.
The number of injured is massive, although
the deaths have been few in this area. Although
our base camp is still not fully organized
yet, the teams started working on providing
relief to the injured and sick people.
- The injured were
segregated into two sections. Firstly, all
those who had severe injuries, fractures,
lost limbs, and gangrene affected areas
where put on one of our trucks (which was
converted into an ambulance), and sent immediately
to the nearest Army Hospital in the area
near Bagh. These patients would be transferred
to Rawalpindi by helicopter by the Pakistan
Army so that they may get proper treatment.
- Our field hospital
is catering only to those patients who do
not have serious injuries, and who need
medical assistance only with minor surgical
procedures. At the moment, we are not geared
to take any major surgical procedures. We
do not have that kind of equipment at the
field hospital to do that. With the passage
of time, we may get better instruments like
mobile X-Ray machine, etc, and then we may
have capability for a few more procedures.
- We have a lady doctor
(wife of Major Aamir) in our team. Her presence
has meant that all the women are coming
to get a check up too. Otherwise, women
were being left out.
- The Pakistan HVACR
Society has now decided to join
our efforts too. These alliances will give
us greater purchasing power and rehabilitation.
- NTC (National
Telecommunications Corporation)
has also decided to join our effort. Chairman
NTC, Rear Admiral Shahid Farooq is also
a Petarian and he is very much behind our
efforts. NTC will be contributing with a
couple of truck loads of relief goods every
day to our effort.
- In addition, we
have been able to procure 85 tents and other
stuff like food, medicines, etc yesterday.
- A helipad has been
constructed at the site by our team at the
front camp. We now have the coordinates
of the village too, i.e. latitude and longitude.
We had sent a GPS to determine these so
that it would be easy for a helicopter to
locate the site.
- After great efforts,
we now have commitments from the Pakistan
Army Aviation to get one sortie on a MI-17
transport helicopter for tomorrow (15th)
morning. We shall transport around 100 tents.
- Then we have commitments
from the Cabinet Division Aviation to use
their smaller helicopter for a couple of
sorties tomorrow. This small helicopter
can take a payload of only 1,500 lbs only.
We will be using these sorties for medical
supplies, and other critical emergency items.
I shall
report on the progress of these helicopter sorties
tomorrow.
- In the meantime,
we have dispatched one more truckload of
food to the site - part of which was bought
by us and partly it was donations in kind
received from different people.
- We have also found
a cheaper source of supply of tents from
Faisalabad. We had bought our first lot
of 100 tents at Rs. 9,000 a piece from a
Lahore trader. We are now getting the same
sized tent from this Faisalabad party at
Rs. 1,875 a piece. He is the manufacturer,
which cuts out all the middlemen. Secondly,
he is a God-fearing man and is charging
us only for the cost of materials without
any profit. We are thus now buying 5 tents
for the price of one. Thus, our estimate
on the cost of tents goes down five times.
I placed an order for 500 tents immediately,
and have cancelled orders on the trader
from Lahore.
This
same Faisalabad party is giving us 4 large hospital
tents (each tent is 54ft x 54ft) at a cost of
Rs. 32,000 a piece. I immediately cancelled
yesterday's order on a Dubai party, where I
was buying large tents from there at a price
of AED 5,000 (Rs. 80,000) a piece. We will be
getting delivery of these 4 tents today insha
Allah, and transport them to our site tomorrow
morning.
- We are trying our
level best to find cheaper sources, since
money is scarce. At the moment, in this
time of need, we have some traders who are
black marketing the scarce goods and trying
to make a fast buck. We will pay the high
price when we are stuck, but better planning
and buying practices will save us a lot
of money.
- Another party in
Lahore is donating 50 tents plus a bunch
of blankets, food items today. These will
also go on the same truck as the 4 large
tents. We have dispatched our truck to Lahore
to pick this stuff up.
- Capt. Altaf Rehman,
87 entry/Latif House has also arrived to
go to the site for 9 days. He took special
leave from the Army for this purpose. We
will dispatch him on the helicopter tomorrow
insha Allah.
- We now have 5 vehicles
full time at our disposal as follows:
One Adam Zabardast truck which is
based at camp office to transport the injured
to Army camps at Bagh.
One Potohar jeep at camp office to be able
to access the remote dirt roads.
One Adam Zabardast plus one Shehzore truck
plus one Bedford truck for plowing between
Islamabad and base camp.
- Our satellite phones
are also fully operational at site. We have
3 at the moment. We are now working on putting
up a VSAT link from base camp to our control
and command centre in Islamabad.
- We have some volunteers
from AMZT (Farook Ali Khan 7651 is Chief
Executive of this company) flying in from
Karachi in the morning insha Allah. They
will also be carrying some donations as
well.
- Several Petarians,
Abdalians and non-Petarians/Abdalians continue
to give donations on a daily basis. Money
has also started to flow from the members
of the Pakistan HVACR Society which is backing
our efforts.
- We are also hoping
to get support - cash or kind - from Hidaya
Foundation and Noor Foundation over this
weekend.
Let me
now turn to a couple of critical points
- The site we have
chosen is a very difficult one. It is remote
and there are no facilities there. Thus,
our volunteers who are going there have
to rough it out. It is no picnic.
- Due to this, worker
fatigue sets in very fast. Therefore, we
do not plan on keeping our volunteers at
the site for more than 5-7 days at a go.
And if any one cannot take it, we are also
willing to bring him back sooner.
- We therefore need
a lot of back up volunteers who are motivated,
and who are willing to rough it out for
a few days. For this, we need:
Junior doctors with house job experience
only [we don’t need senior doctors as the
procedures we are doing are not complex.
Besides senior doctors may not be able to
rough it out
Paramedics.
General volunteers who would be
distributing food, managing logistics, registering
the affected, managing the tents, etc. It
would be good if we can have more junior
or middle level officers of the Pakistan
Army or Navy, if they can take a few days
off, as their training allows rough environments.
Major Aamir and Capt. Altaf are a great
asset to us at the moment. But we need their
replacements too.
We also need more volunteers in
Islamabad for manning our command and control
centre. As activity picks up, we will need
at least 3-4 people round the clock at the
command centre. At the moment, we have only
2 boys at a time all round the clock. Again,
we need people in the 20s and 30s who are
motivated, and who have good communication
skills. We will also be rotating these people
as no one may be able to take time out for
2-3 months from his job. If we can get volunteers
who can inform us the dates (any time over
next 3 months) when they can be available
for one or two weeks, that will be great.
We are doing 8-12 hour shifts.
Brothers,
please remember that this will be a sustained
effort over a period of 3-4 months. It is not
like a bubble. I know that interest dies out
very fast, and it will be difficult if we don’t
have a sustained support from all of you over
the coming months. Let us make this into a successful
operation and a model operation. |
