Chance rescue: Villagers get help after blocking church workers' van
A woman mourns the death of her son in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Oct. 11. Three days after a powerful earthquake struck India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, relief efforts remained chaotic, and U.N. officials said scores more helicopters were needed to get food, medicine and shelter to millions of survivors. (CNS photo from Reuters) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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By Anto Akkara
10/11/2005
RI, India (CNS) -- The Catholic relief workers from St. Joseph Hospital reached the distraught families in Jabala village by sheer chance.
The half dozen workers from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India and Caritas were shocked when their van was blocked by a group of irate villagers on the earthquake-damaged road between Uri and Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, Oct. 10.
"If you are genuinely serious about relief work, why don't you visit our village?" Mohammed Habibullah asked angrily as the church relief workers got out of their van amid baton-wielding villagers.
An hour later, after hiking rocky pathways on a steep mountain slope in pitch darkness, villager Mohammed Bain was thanking the relief workers.
"We had lost all hope and never thought anyone would come reach us. God will bless you," he said.
Jabala, elevation 8,200 feet, was one of scores of villages badly damaged in the magnitude 7.6 earthquake that hit Pakistan, India and Afghanistan Oct. 8. By Oct. 11, officials said more than 1,300 people had died in India, and the death toll in Pakistan was expected to surpass 35,000.
Bain's sister-in-law, Rafeet Aree, and the infant girl she delivered on the eve of the quake were in dire medical need when the church relief workers reached them. The two had been pulled from the debris of their house, which collapsed during the quake.
"The mother has an acute infection and the child is serious and cannot suck (breast) milk," said Sister Vinita, a member of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady and nursing chief at St Joseph Hospital in Baramula.
Sister Vinita administered emergency injections to the mother and the child, both of whom had huddled under cotton sheets and blankets for two days in a makeshift tent in their Himalayan village. An elderly cousin, also injured as houses collapsed, huddled with them.
"It was God's plan that they (villagers) blocked our way," said Jesuit Father Susai Nathan, who led the church delegates from New Delhi to assess the devastation in the region around Uri, India's worst-hit area.
After much persuasion and pleading by the visiting nuns and her neighbors, Zarefa Begum got up and came out of her ramshackle tent. Begum was distraught: Her 1-month-old daughter died in her arms when the roof of her house collapsed while she was breast-feeding. When Begum was pulled out of the rubble, she could hardly stand because of acute pain in her spine.
Realizing the villagers' need for urgent medical attention, the church team returned to its base at the Baramula hospital, about 30 miles away.
Within a couple of hours, a busload of volunteers armed with essential drugs and equipment was making its way to Jabala and other villages.
With a larger volunteer team fanning out to more villages Oct. 11, St Joseph Hospital was preparing to receive the first of the quake victims.
"Our target is to reach out to the most needy," said Father Nathan.
Meanwhile, officials of the bishops' conference, Caritas and Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' international relief and development agency, were in Baramula meeting with government and army officials seeking permission to begin relief work in the troubled region, where Islamic militants have been fighting for an independent Kashmir.
"We have called for doctors from our hospitals in Delhi and other places," said Father Alex Vadakkunthala, secretary of the bishops' health commission.
He said even X-ray machines were being flown in from New Delhi, because St. Joseph was not equipped to handle the crisis.
"If you are genuinely serious about relief work, why don't you visit our village?" Mohammed Habibullah asked angrily as the church relief workers got out of their van amid baton-wielding villagers.
An hour later, after hiking rocky pathways on a steep mountain slope in pitch darkness, villager Mohammed Bain was thanking the relief workers.
"We had lost all hope and never thought anyone would come reach us. God will bless you," he said.
Jabala, elevation 8,200 feet, was one of scores of villages badly damaged in the magnitude 7.6 earthquake that hit Pakistan, India and Afghanistan Oct. 8. By Oct. 11, officials said more than 1,300 people had died in India, and the death toll in Pakistan was expected to surpass 35,000.
Bain's sister-in-law, Rafeet Aree, and the infant girl she delivered on the eve of the quake were in dire medical need when the church relief workers reached them. The two had been pulled from the debris of their house, which collapsed during the quake.
"The mother has an acute infection and the child is serious and cannot suck (breast) milk," said Sister Vinita, a member of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady and nursing chief at St Joseph Hospital in Baramula.
Sister Vinita administered emergency injections to the mother and the child, both of whom had huddled under cotton sheets and blankets for two days in a makeshift tent in their Himalayan village. An elderly cousin, also injured as houses collapsed, huddled with them.
"It was God's plan that they (villagers) blocked our way," said Jesuit Father Susai Nathan, who led the church delegates from New Delhi to assess the devastation in the region around Uri, India's worst-hit area.
After much persuasion and pleading by the visiting nuns and her neighbors, Zarefa Begum got up and came out of her ramshackle tent. Begum was distraught: Her 1-month-old daughter died in her arms when the roof of her house collapsed while she was breast-feeding. When Begum was pulled out of the rubble, she could hardly stand because of acute pain in her spine.
Realizing the villagers' need for urgent medical attention, the church team returned to its base at the Baramula hospital, about 30 miles away.
Within a couple of hours, a busload of volunteers armed with essential drugs and equipment was making its way to Jabala and other villages.
With a larger volunteer team fanning out to more villages Oct. 11, St Joseph Hospital was preparing to receive the first of the quake victims.
"Our target is to reach out to the most needy," said Father Nathan.
Meanwhile, officials of the bishops' conference, Caritas and Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' international relief and development agency, were in Baramula meeting with government and army officials seeking permission to begin relief work in the troubled region, where Islamic militants have been fighting for an independent Kashmir.
"We have called for doctors from our hospitals in Delhi and other places," said Father Alex Vadakkunthala, secretary of the bishops' health commission.
He said even X-ray machines were being flown in from New Delhi, because St. Joseph was not equipped to handle the crisis.
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
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