Logging under the rubble

Two weeks passed when a rescue team started removing the rubble of a primary school amid strong winds, cold and rain. Obviously it was too late and what they found inside were twenty girl students in dirt and all dead. With fear struck faces and holding tight to each other in twos and threes. They must have faced death for so many days before their lives finally ended in darkness. No one cared to come on time.

Taj, a nine years old girl was found holding a pencil and note book in her hands, with her innocent eyes wide open staring in the void. Her father shrieked as he found his little angel lying dead and stiff cold, all dusty.

All this time since she got trapped under that narrow triangle made by the fallen roof and walls of her class room , she didnt let go of her notebook and pencil and kept writing, and in that communicating with her mom and dad, all her lines begining with Mama or Papa.

But she didnt have any idea of what actually had happened, so she wrote to her dad in that homework book that someone has bombed their school, which made their classroom shake wildly at first, which made them hit and fall on each other, and then another explosion made the roof come down on her fellows. After which it was all foggy with dust.

For the first day, her log was coherent and with the date on top. But later, she scribbled her notes whenever it was enough light for her to jot down and whichever page opened in front of her, and whenever she came out of uncousciousness.

To her dad she writes:

"Papa, our teacher had just finished checking the homework of a few girls, but our classroom suddenly started shaking because some terrorist threw a bomb on our school. We fell on each other. We didnt even get back up when there was an explosion and two beams from the roof came down and with them the whole roof. It fell in such a way that it made our room into a triangle, with beams and the roof. When the dust settled, I saw Asifa, Jannat and Noor pressed under a beam and shouting in pain.Our teacher and the rest of tried hard to move it but it didnt, at all. Then they became still in a few moments. As they went quiet we all started crying and shouting in fear. Our teacher Mariam tried to calm us down and was reciting the Kalima loud. But another huge peice of roof fell on her and she was gone. Due to dust, fear and darkness we all became uncounsious. And then it was complete dark"

These are the last of her ordered notes. Scattered scribblings and fuzzy sentences make up the later part of her log. Now she writes without a date, and writes only when she is back to her consciousness and finds enough light to write on any page she sees.

"Papa, I dont know how I woke up. It was may be the pain, hunger or the sharp ray of light that fell on my eyes. I got up to sit. Everyone around me was laying unconscious and senseless. I started shivering so badly in horror. I called out Saba, Naheed, Yasmeen, but no one even moved, they were so cold.

"Papa, I started crying so much, and from out of nowhere Nazia came and clung with me, i got scared, and i shouted "Who"?, "Me Nazia".

"Papa I m so hungry, there is no water, then we started crying together, huddled with each other.

Now, Taj started writing in very short lines.

Papa, Nazia is so quied, she doesnt cry at all.

Papa, she doesnt talk.

Papa, I am so scared.

Mama, give me bread, give me water.

Papa, Mama, it is so cold.

Mama, my leg is getting stiff.

Papa Papa, Mama Mama

Mama, Who took my blanket

Papa, my stomach.

Mama dont you know, I need a blanket?

Mama where are you, where are you?

And then there is just a line stretching across her notebook, she could write no more. She held her copy till the end, and this is all what her father has of her now, who told how he had taught her to write a story, when she asked for it a year or so ago. He had told her to write just as an incident happens in front of her eyes, so she used to write a real story everyday of what she used to see around.

And she had a story to tell when she was dying too, no amount of words can ever tell her pain. Thousands other kids like her lost their lives in their very schools. They couldnt be reached because of the haphazard aid and rescue efforts. Wailing parents could do nothing with bare hands. But they kept clinging to the broken schools in a disoriented state, with their ears on fallen walls, to hear one word from inside. But most still can't even have their children's dead bodies, because this is all that they want now so they can see them, touch them and bury them with their own hands.

Time wasted is the time wasted. Though most from around the country have played their part, but there are more people left to be cared than those have been reached and helped. All because of being disorganized on the overall, and not being prepared even on the basic level.

We ask Allah to ease their pains, and give peace to the departed souls. Aameen.

Shared by: B

How to manage a Trauma Patient?

The article is featured here. It is a general awareness topic so people can know the basic life saving methods. Please give it a read.

Salute to Pakistani Media

The thing I liked about this Eid was that Geo TV and Ary Digital Channel did a great job by celebrating this eid with earthquake victims especially kids. Those celebrities atleast succeeded in bringing smiles over the faces of innocent kids by playing, singing and giving them eidi/gifts. Kudos to you!!

Research

After the recent earthquakes in Pakistan, I heard TV opinions of different people and read articles. With them I am able to draw some intresting conclusions:

Why Earthquakes Come?

Earth releases its energy in many ways. One of its most dangerous and unpredictable way is earthquakes.

On the ground we are standing, below it are plates called tectonic plates. Every regio in the earth is on some plate. Some continents have same plates, some have different. Oceans are on plates as well.These plates move and because of their motions they develop energy in them and
they release it when it becomes too much either in the form of volcano or earthquake or in some other form.

Formation of Earth on Different Plates:

The World Today:


The picture above tells the formation of today's world on plates. I would say you open the picture while reading the material in this section.

The meeting point (indicated by the red lines) of different plates lie in three main categories. They are Constructive, Destructive and Conservative.

At Constructive Margins:
Where two plates are met by constructive line shown in the picture, then these two plates are going away from each other. The sea floor is spreading, allowing semi-molten rock to well up b/w the two diverging plates. E.g, as you can see in the picture,there is a constructive
meeting point b/w the Europe and North America, So the mid-Atlantic Europe and North American are being forced apart at 2 cm a year.

At Destructive Margins:
Destructive Margins occur when plates are forced together. When two continent plates collide, giant mountain ranges are thrust up. E.g, as a result of collision of Eurassian plate and Indo Plate , we see a great Himalyan Range, similarly Alps in Europe by the collision of Eurassian an African Plate. When an oceanic plate collides with a continental plate, part of its load of crust is subducted or carried down, into the mantle beneath the more buoyant continental crust. When two oceanic plates collide, a volcanic island such as Marianas Islands in Pacific is formed. Due to collision of plates , earthquakes can occur here, e.g Pakistan's recent quake that was felt in India because of the same reason that we both share the destructive meeting point of plates of Eurassian and Indo-Australian Plate.

At Conservative Margins:
Here no new crust is generated neither destroyed but there can be disastrous earthquake. They take place by the sliding of the plates together. If you see the picture again what line is going through possibly Iran and Pakistan...its conservative line. e.g Iran disastrous earthquake that killed thousands of people.

World 130 Millions Year Ago:
The picture below shows the world 130 millions year before. Now isnt that amazing how the world changed and we have a completely different world today, thats because of the movement of the plates. If you remember the text above, i wrote north america and europe are seperating at 2cm/year speed. See this picture below , how they were 130 million year before. Now, they are apart at quite a considerable distance between them. So its the movement of the plates that should be taken seriously. We will see how the world will be in 250 Million years from now in next section.



World 250 Millions Years From Now:
Even now Africa is breaking up; the Mediterranean is closing; Western and Eastern Californica are sailing past each other. The earth's tectonic process continue inexorably, and by computer plotting from exisiting trends it is possible to predict the future and below is the future.



See above where the America, Australia, India, Pakistan, Africa are, they are just because of the movement of the plates. Todays world will be so different tomorrow.

Prediction of Earthquakes:

Human Way:

• The most promising research on prediction of earthquake is on waves that are generated at the time of earthquake. There are two types of waves that are generated at the time of quake. One is P-Wave (Primary Wave) and the other is S-Wave (Secondary Wave). P-Wave are shock waves that travel like a bellow. S-Wave is the wave that is generated afterwards and cause ripple up and down. Research suggests that the speed at which the rock transmits P waves changes before the an earthquake strikes.

• The P-Waves and S-Waves travel in direction that form a right angle triangle. The ratio of P-Wave and S-Wave is in b/w 1.24-1.34. However when an earthquake comes , this
  ratio changes to a greater extent.

• Scientists have also studied the length of time between major earthquake episodes. Violent earthquake sometime come in cycles at plate edges. Large earthquakes are likely to occur where they have happened 100 years or more ago. High risk area when this research was being done were told "Chile, California, Taiwan , Sumatra and Caribbean". So now we know where Tsunami hit, at the high risk area of Taiwan and Sumatra which the scientist predicted way back.

Animals Way:
Animals can predict earthquakes. Yes that is absolutely right. Animals behave differently when they sense earthquake is on the cards. For e.g A group of Elephants that were near the Tsunami hit area left the area before the Tsunami struck that area.How elephant knew about the earthquake? . The answer is elephant foot have sensors that can sense waves travelling beneath the earth and that helps them sensing about earthquake.

Future Predictions:
There are many more earthquakes still to come as you can see the world is completely different in future. For Pakistanis and Asians ,the news is not good thats what i think because if you see the current world (World today picture) , a conservative line goes through Iran and a destructive line goes from the northern parts of Pakistan , so because of the movement of the plates to bring the shape of the world 250 millions years from now, we can encounter more
earthquakes, the current earthquake is just one from the sequence that might hit the region in future..sorry to say that..but thats true, but the time is in millions so we shouldnt worry that much as we wont be living that much.

Same goes for the rest of the world. Earthquake wont stop coming but one should be careful while living in the areas of constructive, destructive and conservative meeting points of the plate because these points are mostly vulnerable to yield an earthquake.

Credits:
World Atlas for pictures and technical assistance
Dr. Shahid Masood's Views on News program.

All rights reserved by FM Productions.