First person accounts of the quake, and a Google AdSense fund-raising effort
Quakehelp.com links to several bloggers in Pakistan.
Mubeen:
7.6 for 6 minutes...
It was extremely terrifying. Was sleeping at around 8:45 when suddenly heard a strange sound, 'gaunj' which woke me up for a while but just as I was about to close my eyes for sleep something shook my bed totally. It was the quake. In sleep I failed to recognise it first and tried sleeping again but the second shock was the worst. the whole structure seemed to move for a while. I ran outside trying to go in the street when our maid shouted me to stay where i am and sit down immediately. I din't know what was going on I tried to run again but was again asked to sit down where i stood. I sat on a nearby bench while she recited Kalima in a hoarse voice. The whole house seemed to be moving, shaking badly. Thankfully it stopped soon but it was horrible. I gathered my senses and went to sleep again..
The sound of Geo's broadcaster woke me up from sleep as I heard him talking about the earthquake. I never realised it was that bad till i got to see the television. Margalla Bulding was left to dust, several casualities were reported. They fear that the death toll may rise beyond 1000!. Tauheed Khalla called from Islamabad and told that a crack appeared on one of their walls. The news agency's are only talking about Islamabad and nothern areas not even mentioning Lahore which shows how viscious the quake was over there.
May Allah help us recover from this terrible incident and Save us in future!
Aamin!
I've been in earthquakes here in California, and I can't even conceive of a quake lasting six minutes. Sounds truly terrifying.
Castle 4:
Following breakfast I went in to the kitchen and saw we had a pretty good stack of dishes in the sink....I’d gotten through most everything, only three pieces of silverware and a wine glass remained to be washed when I started to notice a rumbling sound, low at first, and then getting louder – my senses went into overdrive at this point. I felt the floor move, imperceptibly at first, then a bit more. I also began to hear sounds of dishes rattling. All of these inputs to my brain registered in less that two seconds, or two and – I immediately, within 2 to 3 seconds of the first indication, knew that now at 8:50 AM, what I was feeling was an EARTHQUAKE....
[T]here was no doubt in my mind that this was a trembler - and a big one. I just reacted, I didn’t even try to stop and think, you don’t have time. I didn’t turn off the water at the sink, I moved to my right and reached for the door beside the sink – damn, it was locked, Nadia is so security conscious. I fumbled with the deadbolt and finally managed to turn it – opened the door and the screen door in front of it and moved to stand in the doorway. I yelled to my room mate, “earthquake, find a doorway and stand in it.” I had no idea if he’d been through one before or not, but my training from childhood kicked in....
I stood there, in that doorway thinking, I really don’t want to go below ground level and hope I can make it to safety if things start falling – so I just stood there. It seemed like an eternity – and frankly as earthquakes go, it was. Every other earthquake I’ve been through has lasted only a few seconds and it was over. This went on for what seemed like minutes and as I was standing there, I wondering why nothing had collapsed, particularly given the standards of construction I’ve observed, something came crashing down inside the house. We have several interior glass windows and shelves – I figured one of those had shattered and fallen to the marble floor. I wondered if parts of the house would come down next.
I don’t know the duration of this quake, but it was somewhat greater than 30 seconds and probably less than two minutes – official records will eventually reveal the duration, but frankly, it doesn’t matter when you’re in the middle of it – what matters is getting out alive.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the shaking subsided and I hollered up to my room mate to see if he was alright – he answered immediately that he was – thank goodness I thought – but I also remembered the threat of aftershocks. We moved through the house to the driveway – where nothing was above us and we were on solid ground. We stood there, the two of us, Nadia, Naveed, Reeba and their niece were also standing there – I could see by the look on their faces they were shaken, badly. We stood on the driveway, talking for several minutes and Nadia said that she’d been through a few other earthquakes, but nothing like this. I acknowledged, this was a big one indeed....
We’d just begun to clean up, Naveed was helping us, when the first aftershock hit – we rushed outdoors again. It was relatively minor, by comparison to what we’d just been through and passed quickly....
Nadia came upstairs to let us know the news was reporting that a building in Islamabad, F-10 area, about a mile and a half from our house, had partially collapsed. She related news reports indicated the top two floors had failed. We decided to go up to the National Defense College – very close by, to see if our classmates needed any assistance. Along the way, there was very little evidence of damage, but people were flooded out of their houses and apartments, sitting in any shade they could find to protect themselves from the morning sun. Traffic was extremely heavy, many people appeared to be heading towards the building collapse area – we turned up to the College and found our way in quite easily. Most of our classmates were outside, sitting on the grass, many still in their night clothes. They were fine – but shaken, most had never experienced an earthquake before. We stayed for a while talking with them. One student had been in the F-10 area, his house right next to the Margalla Tower that collapsed. He said, the building had come down completely, and showed us a short video on his cellular phone of the area – the devastation was obvious.
We returned home after visiting our German colleague, whose residence was also close to the College. He was fine, but had no electricity. The traffic was still heavy, I don’t know where people were going, but every roadway was busier than normal and drivers were behaving more insanely than normal.
This afternoon has been surreal – we’ve stayed home and out of the way of emergency crews. Every thirty minutes or so another helicopter passes overhead, certainly ferrying patients from the collapsed Margalla Towers to a local hospital. We don’t know how many people are trapped in there, but have learned an Egyptian and several Japanese Embassy staff members did not survive. All we could do was watch news reports coming in and shake our heads in amazement – how lucky were we.
I called one classmate who I thought had gone to Muzzafarabad, which I understood was quite hard hit. I learned that the hotel where we’d had dinner two weeks ago before watching the music show was gone, collapsed, nothing left. Apparently the owner and his family may have perished in the building....
And did you know that the Metroblogging empire has extended to Karachi? It reports on an effort called helppakistan.blogspot.com which proposes to use Google AdSense to collect relief funds.
Note - I, Dr. Awab Alvi, as the organizer of this volunteer relief effort assure you that all funds will be handled with extreme care.
I then surfed to the first post at the helppakistan website:
This blog was created barely a day into the tragedy that engulfed Pakistan on the morning of 8th of October 2005.
Many organisations across the country have organized themselves to take part in the relief efforts, some providing physcial aid and a few helping the needy but in my opinion the most unexplored potential that has yet to be tapped which is the power of the internet to be able to tap thousands if not millions acorss the world
Due to distance limitations concernce individuals worldwide wanting to help in anyway possible can join hands with us to bring relief for the victims of this tragedy
We do not ask for your credit card or any other monetary item but just ask you to use the tremendous power of the Mouse to click on the Google Ads above. The contributions will in turn help us raise fund, click as many as you desire, naturally the more the better.
Who am I: I am Dr. Awab Alvi a dentist practicing in Karachi at Alvi Dental Hospital. In this nobel effort I take full responisbility to ensure that all funds are carefully distributed to the deserving relief organizations. I will present myself as being solely responibile for the judicical distribution of funds
Here is Dr. Awab Alvi's dental hospital web site.
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