The impact of the earthquake in South Asia on Oct. 8 has been
felt well outside the borders of Pakistan and India, affecting the
lives of UCLA students and motivating numerous student groups to
work together to raise money for victims.
Kiran Lodhie, president of the Pakistani Students Association,
found out that one of her uncles had been in the area at the time
of the earthquake by reading a BBC article. Bennish Pervez, a
fifth-year mechanical engineering student, heard descriptions of
extensive damage to the city of Islamabad when she spoke to family
members by cell phone shortly after the quake.
Lodhie said her uncle was on the way to a campsite near the
epicenter of the earthquake when the driver of the car lost control
of the vehicle. Neither of them was seriously injured, despite a
landslide after the quake.
“Rocks were falling down the mountain,” she said.
“It was basically a huge landslide.”
Though Lodhie’s uncle was fasting daily for Ramadan, the
Muslim holy month, the car was packed with supplies for the camping
trip.
After the earthquake, which injured some locals and blocked
roads, people were unable to leave the area. Locals looked to
Lodhie’s uncle as a source of food because many had no
supplies in their homes, as the breaking of the fast at sunset is
often a community event.
“Because a lot of them were wounded, (locals) came up to
them looking for supplies, looking dazed and confused,”
Lodhie said.
Pervez has family both in Pakistan and the area of Kashmir
controlled by India, which were both hard hit by the quake.
Because Pervez saw news about the tremblor on the Internet just
30 minutes after it struck, she was able to reach her family in
Islamabad via cell phone right away. Those who did not hear of the
earthquake immediately were unable to reach family members until
Monday because land lines were down and cell phones were busy,
Pervez said.
“My uncle said that he could see the earth leveled, just
destruction,” Pervez said.
Her uncle immediately left for the Pakistani-controlled area of
Kashmir with supplies for family there. He could not reach the area
controlled by India.
“You can’t call between Indian Kashmir and Pakistani
Kashmir, so my mom’s family in the Indian part of Kashmir
called us in the United States to see how relatives in the
Pakistani area were,” Pervez said.
Pervez’s family members in both areas are continuing the
Ramadan fast, despite deaths in the family and the destruction of
their homes.
Pervez’s family is unlikely to be the only one to
experience extra difficulty in the quake’s aftermath due to
Kashmir’s separation into Indian and Pakistani sectors.
The historical conflict between India and Pakistan over the area
of Kashmir, which both countries claim as their territory, will
certainly affect the ability to deal with problems caused by the
earthquake, said Sanjay Subrahmanyam, a history professor and
director of the Center for Indian and South Asian Studies.
Subrahmanyam said that because the area is militarized and there
is a high level of secrecy in some areas, there may be a reluctance
to allow outsiders into the region to help.
Additionally, distrust between the two countries may complicate
the movement of supplies.
“When you are trying to get aid into the areas affected,
usually the best equipped for this is the army, which would be an
issue,” Subrahmanyam said. The two countries are unlikely to
welcome increased military activity from each other.
But the conflict between Pakistan and India over Kashmir has not
stopped students at UCLA from working together to raise funds for
earthquake victims.
Lodhie and the Pakistani Students Association are part of a
coalition of student groups who started fundraising on Bruin Walk
in the week immediately following the earthquake.
The groups plan to continue their efforts, with a longer and
more organized string of events to raise money, Lodhie said.