On the very day of the earthquake we met in
the office and then in the country director's house around 1:30. After that there was a gradual meeting of the UN at 2 o'clock. Three people from Concern attended that meeting. Concern was
part of one of the assessment teams that was sent to Kashmir.And after that the team gave us a situation overview of the affected areas. It was a very like horrifying situation. They gave an
account where people were sitting lying out tired on the road, in the street, hungry, traumatised. They were waiting for help. Houses had collapsed or cracked. It was cold. There was a strange
atmosphere and children were crying with no electricity, no food, no water, no warm clothing, no blankets. It was real chaos as was mentioned by the team at that time. Concern immediately
started supporting Islamic Relief because Islamic Relief was already there in AJK and in Kashmir. The first distributions that Islamic Relief and CWS did in there areas were through Concern
funds and through Concern relief itemsImmediately after the earthquake Concern's management and staff decided to intervene in the areas of shelter and non-food items, and in that context we
ordered, we gave support to Islamic Relief and CWS in providing in-kind support through tents, plastic sheeting, blankets, mattresses, stoves, jerry cans, some limited food support and kitchen
items.The main challenges that we faced during this time was this disaster was of a huge scale and huge intensity. Nobody was expecting such kind of disastersThe second thing was the
immediate inaccessibility of the affected areas. Right after this earthquake there was rain and because of the earthquake all the ground became very soft. There were landslides, the ground was
breaking, the roads were blocked. The major issue was inaccessibility. We really struggled at the initial stages of the disaster to take the relief items to the people who need. We used army,
any other means people on foot, donkey and mule to take the relief goods up there in the affected areas. It was very difficult terrain. It was all mountainousIn some places there are no
regular roads. There's only sort of feeder roads or tracks – they're only for walking. It was very difficult because of the landslides – whatever was present was damaged. That was a real
challenge for us.Extreme rain and extreme weather, extreme cold really hampered the relief effort and gave us tremendous difficulties in providing the relief to the affected communities.We responded in NWFP and Kashmir and we provided shelter and food and non-food items and water and sanitation services to over 45,000 families.We distributed warm clothing to the
childrenIn terms of early recovery and rehab programmes we are covering approximately 70,000 persons in NWFP and our interventions cover do we have enough input for crops, have we enough tools
for artisans and farmers and for debris clearance. Have we enough inputs for kitchen gardens because all these things have been lost during the earthquakeWe are currently supporting farmers
and the people that have animals with the construction of animal sheds for the production of animals. We are distributing livestock that includes goats and sheep that people have lost during the
earthquake. We are providing support for the fruit trees replantation to the people because due to the landslides people lost their trees and their orchardsAgain we are rehabilitating small
businesses, enterprises and shops in the affected areas. We are repairing feeder roads, trails and also repairing water irrigation channels, water supply…and we are providing materials for the
reconstruction of latrines and also we are giving cash support to the communities.We are also providing side by side training on disaster reduction to the communities to mitigate the effect of
the future disasters and to prepare the local communities to cope with any future disastersAll the donor money was spent on providing relief to the communitiesDuring the relief phase
we had spent €7 million and €0.2 million overheads, which is quite low, which is only 3% of €7 million. So you can imagine how this money was spent – all this money was spent on
the relief supplies and there were very little overhead costsWe aim to leave behind strong local institutions, strong local NGOs which are capable of working much the similar way as we are for
the welfare of their own communities
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
