Experiencing devastation at home in Balakot

By Dr. Mohammad Iqbal Qasim

The first earthquake was horizontal and people were tossed a few meters into the street. I could hear weeping and cries for help. The second quake was vertical and the buildings fell down on people and crushed them. Many of the cries stopped. Then rain and hail came from the sky.

When I heard weeping, I started digging in the ground with my hands as it rained. We had no tools. There was nothing that I could do. I felt helpless.

PHOTO: IMC About 97% of all buildings in Balakot were destroyed in the earthquake.

Most of the children died of shock. Some of them died in my lap. My friend found IV fluids, but we did not have a "drip" to give the infusion.

My father had a fractured ankle and my mother fractured both bones of her lower leg. Neither could walk. I had to get medical help for them. Vehicles were useless, as the roads were blocked from landslides.

I lost two cousins in the earthquake, but miraculously, my sister and brother survived. With the help of surviving friends and family, I walked for two hours from Balakot to the hospital in Mansehra. We carried my mother and father on stretchers 30 kilometers over the hills.

I returned to Balakot for three days to give medical treatment to my fellow villagers. We took food and bottled water from the collapsed stores in the market. About 97% of all the buildings in Balakot were collapsed.

The walls of my house collapsed, but the roof did not fall in. My house sunk one meter into the ground. Some two-story buildings sank into the ground; you could not see the first floor. It was below the ground.

Mohammad Iqbal Qasim is an International Medical Corps physician serving his hometown community at the IMC-operated Balakot clinic. He is 28 years old.

He attended Khyber Medical School in Peshawar and was in Balakot on leave from his medical studies at the time of the earthquake.