It was the weekend, sun was shinning brightly. Most of the people were sleeping or were getting ready to leave their homes for work. Then at 9:00 am the earth started to shook, sending tremors of the magnitude of 7.6 bringing down buildings and crushing those who slept. Within seconds the clouds of dust could be seen everywhere. The air filled with screams and moans. The strongest earthquake the livings had ever seen. The tremors not only shook the capital of Pakistan, but also its other cities, the tremors were also felt in Afghanistan and India. 20,000 dead, 45,000 injured, thousands homeless. Thousands still buried under the debris waiting for someone to take them out. Time is ticking. Winters are fast approaching; soon it will be biting cold in the Northern regions of Pakistan, which is the hardest hit area. Roads are already blocked due to mudslides. Difficulty is setting in as there is no way to get to the remote areas except by helicopters. Help is on its way....but too late for those who waited for nearly 40 hours for any help to reach them. Cries from the debris started to dim and eventually all went silent. Yesterday, where there were towns and livelihood of so many people, where there was life; today all is quite and numbness has started to creep in the blood of the survivors. How did it all happen? Where did all the planning go? What to do now? So many questions and no answer. After Tsunami it's the biggest catastrophe in the recent years the human kind has faced. We always tend to think that we are secure in our houses, nothing "bad" can happen, but we have to admit life seldom turns out to be the way we plan. Life has a way of intruding without asking us first. Nothing is guaranteed. We humans cannot match the force of Mother Nature. Every time we plan, we rebuild, we think we have gone stronger. But is that correct? Human's are like little matchsticks when it's compared to the Mother Nature. One swoosh and all is swept away. And then we start to think what we did we do, to have it brought upon ourselves. |
