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In the morning of the 15th, the sky was
overcast with some rain all over the north
region. This had hampered all movement of
trucks and all the helicopters were grounded
until early afternoon. Finally, the Pakistan
Army helicopters started moving supplies
after 1pm, and thus most of the cargo was
left stranded at Rawalpindi.
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We
had a consignment of 85 tents to be airlifted.
Although we had an earlier commitment that
all will be sent, at the last minute they
cut our cargo down to 30 tents on an Afghan
MI-17 (arranged courtesy of Capt. Nayyer
Islam, Abdalian). They did take our 2 volunteers
though - Capt. Altaf (87 entry) and Hashir
(s/o Air Comm. Nayyer - Abdalian).
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The helipad was ready at the site, and our
teams had marked it properly. We had proper
GPS readings of the actual location so that
there would be no confusion. The helicopter
finally got to the site around 4:15pm. As
it blew up too much dust, the helicopter
then moved and landed in a field a couple
of hundred yards away. Before our teams
could get to the helicopter, a couple of
hundred nearby villagers who had been sitting
on the roadside rushed to it, and virtually
ransacked all the goods. Despite scuffles,
our people could not lay their hands on
the tents. This was the first small setback
for us. We lost all the 30 tents.
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While
the two new volunteers got dropped of by
the MI-17, seven of the previous volunteers
returned to Islamabad on the same helicopter.
These included 2 doctors and 5 other volunteers.
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The
remaining 55 tents were returned to our
Islamabad base from the Chaklala airbase.
We then loaded these along with tons of
other food supplies, medicines, blankets,
clothes, etc, and a convoy of 1 Bedford
truck, 1 Shehzore, and one Potohar Jeep
left Islamabad at around midnight. These
arrived at the site today (16th) at around
1pm.
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We loaded another truck from Lahore with
the 4 hospital tents that were ordered the
previous day (each tent is 54 ft x 54ft)
plus around 10 chairs. This truck arrived
at our Islamabad base around Sehri time
this morning. The rest of the space was
stacked up with remaining materials lying
at our Islamabad stores and dispatched.
The truck has not yet arrived at site until
the writing of this report.
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We also tried one more sortie on a small
helicopter yesterday evening with a load
of around 700Kg. Unfortunately, that could
not take off due to poor light conditions
before sundown.
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We
received a list of medicines from our site,
based on the actual requirements, and as
developed by our team of doctors. We have
procured all those medicines, and will be
sending them preferably by helicopter.
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We have been receiving a stream of supplies
through the Abdalian Association from Kohat
(courtesy of Air Commodore Nayyer). So far,
a few truck loads of supplies have arrived
from Kohat.
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The
Abdalian Association also sent in a group
of around 10 volunteers from Kohat, who
departed for the Samni village along with
the Bedford truck-Shehzore-Potohar jeep
convoy. They will be replacing the 7 volunteers
who returned by helicopter.
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The
progress at site is good. Our teams are
busy with distribution of food and medical
treatment. I have received over 100 photos
from the site, which I will post.
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Late
in the night, it started raining with heavy
winds and thunderstorms all across the northern
belt. This rain and storm has caused havoc.
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Aftershocks
of the earthquake continue every day in
all the areas. Typically, the strongest
jolt of the day comes in the middle of the
night, with an intensity exceeding 5 on
the Richter scale. Islamabad has also been
feeling these jolts every night.
