What Natural Disasters Can Do

As unfortunate as it is, a nation that shows the highest level of solidarity when a natural disaster strikes, stays unaffected by the self-led bloodshed caused by civilians on daily basis.

Flipping through the archive, I came across another humanitarian account.

The Floods of 2010
Of the countries falling in the monsoon belt affected drastically by floods in 2010, Pakistan was the worst hit of all undoubtedly. Flying to help were NGOs, civilians, and various humanitarian groups that went active online to mobilize aid from all corners. Needless to mention, there were also those many freeloading off the genuine efforts of others opportunistically using the ‘hype’ to their advantage.

As per a CNN iReport that ran on CNN Health on August 2, 2010, UM Health Trust was one such body that had been preoccupied with providing healthcare relief from day 1, invalidating the efforts of all those who take months getting fully functional. As highlighted in the report, the health facility started operating off the premises of a grammar school in Nowshera, having treated more than 400 people since it came together within the first few days of set-up.

UM HealthTrust came to the rescue of flood survivors before U.N., the Red Cross, and even the local government arrived.

From Relief to Rehabilitation
Following rescue and relief, rehabilitation was the next step in the restoration of normality to the population affected by the disaster. Treating 150 patients daily via medical camps, UM Heath Trust slowly moved to the stage of rehabilitation bringing these out of the disaster that had inflicted them.

Via mobile water filtration units, UM Health provided 100,000 liters of clean filtered water to the affected people daily. It managed to do so by collecting unclean water from nearby sources cleansed through filtration units mounted on truck-tops, supplying clean water to over 8,000 families in Nowshera Kalan, Utmanzai and Tangi.

There was however one concern that kept UM Health Trust up at night, so to speak. It was, none other, than the long winter looming ahead for which, UM Health Trust reached out to the various donors for bedding and warm clothing.

UM Health Trust had managed to treat 7,000 medical cases within 7 weeks, and provided food ration to over 3,000 families. Combating water infectious diseases, UM Health Trust also fixated water filtration plants in communities being served by water filtration units previously. Making it all possible for the UM Health Trust, was the never-ending support of CDRS, DRIP, P@SHA, Medical Aid UK, and Pakistani Citizens.

With acts of camaraderie all around us, a commonly-held notion that good doing isn’t worth anyone’s time is rendered invalid.

Or is it? As is the case every year, the streets of Karachi did witness bloodshed once again as a few carried ritualistic processions associated with the turning of New Year as per the Islamic Calendar, marking the beginning of Muharram.

From a broader perspective, such acts of compassion can be appropriately termed as ‘periodic fits’ that the nation goes through whenever a natural disaster hits. Obviously, a normal state of being is the alternate.