Quake Hero Buries Wife, Then Helps Others

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By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 49 minutes ago



MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - The smallest of the seven graves was Dr. Khalid Awan's nephew, the most painful that of his wife. He buried her after the earthquake collapsed the district courthouse in which she worked as a judge. Barely 24 hours later, he opened a makeshift medical camp on a rocky field near his ruined home.

With people crying in agony and dying in front of him, Awan said there was never a question that he would put aside his own mourning.

"People were crying and dying in front of us. How could I not help?" Awan asked Friday. "It was the answer to my feeling of helplessness. I knew that if my wife had lived she would have insisted I do this. I felt closer to her."

The 7.6-magnitude quake leveled villages and killed more than 35,000 people in Pakistan's portion of     Kashmir � about a third of them in the regional capital, Muzaffarabad. The entire side of a mountain was sheared off, causing a landslide that added to the damage of collapsing buildings, leaving thousands injured.

Public buildings such as hospitals, universities, schools and courthouses were among the worst hit, and many of the estimated 12,000 dead in the capital were professional people the city most needs.

"The material loss is not what hurts us. It's the people, the teachers and the professionals that we lost that is killing us today," Awan said.

Salman Hussain, a psychologist in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said hardly anyone in Muzaffarabad escaped the Oct. 8 earthquake unscathed and the psychological toll has not even begun to be felt.

"The biggest thing is the constant fear so many people in Muzaffarabad are dealing with on a daily basis � fear of death, fear of another earthquake, fear of being buried beneath the rubble, fear of living," Hussain said.

Some 500 aftershocks have rattled the region since the quake, including a 5.6-magnitude temblor on Thursday that shook buildings and sent survivors � many of them camping outdoors � scurrying in panic. Experts said the aftershocks could go on for months.

Six days after the quake, a cloud of dust still hung over Muzaffarabad, a rambling city of 600,000 people at the foot of the Himalayas. Hospitals were closed, roads were blocked and no one could enter or leave the city.

Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general and emergency relief coordinator, said millions of people in the city urgently needed food, medicine, shelter and blankets.

Awan said the first day after the earthquake killed his wife Shamim was the worst. The couple's 4-year-old son, Asad, would not let go of him, clinging to him as he passed among the injured at the makeshift medical outpost he set up.

"I explained his mother had gone to her God and he said: 'I know Mama is dead, but now I have prayed for her so she can come home.'"

Their other son, 8-year-old Farhan, rarely spoke and woke up every two hours, he said.

The quake damaged the family's home, forcing Awan and his sons to live in a tent until heavy rains inundated that shelter. Awan then sent the boys to live with their grandparents in Islamabad.

For his part, though, Awan plans to stay in Muzaffarabad to run the medical camp on a rock-strewn field behind the house. The spartan setup consists of two wooden benches and a table stacked with antibiotics, gauze and painkillers under a tattered pale green tent.

Hundreds of patients thronged it soon after it opened, and Awan has recruited two other doctors from the neighborhood.

"I can't leave," he said. "It is my home, where I was born, where all my memories of my wife are."
source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051014/ap_on_re_as/quake_local_ heroes

Edited by Jalisco Lancer