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Monday, 17 October 2005 |
Anne Frankland and Alex Irving arrived in the early hours and when they arrived at the 'office' were soon in the thick of things. In particular Alex, as a remote imagery analyst, was grabbed by a representative of the UN Joint Logistic Centre to talk terrain analysis. Alex was part of the team in Sri Lanka so he dived into the familiar routine of producing maps against the clock with barely a ripple. For Anne, although the whole experience is new, she quickly slotted into the team routines with confidence.
Meanwhile I had jumped a ride on a helicopter run by the UN Humanitarian Air Service. I flew to Muzaffarabad, about 100km north of Islamabad, located in the centre of the devastated zone. The flight over the mountains was spectacular; huge masses of mountains that consisted of sharp ridgelines and impossibly steep drops, falling down to narrow gorges with rushing rivers. Beautiful, certainly, and dotted with impossibly-sited villages and small collections of habitation, all hanging grimly to the hillsides. As we approached the damaged region the visible damage was not readily apparent from the air. Roofs seemed to be on buildings, trees appeared to be growing normally, and at this time, several days after the earthquake, cars were zipping between throughfares thronged with people on foot. The perspective changed on landing. Those seried ranks of roofs had little under them except rubble, and everywhere the whole ediface of civilisation lay scattered.
Collapsed school in Muzaffarabad
I decided to make my way on foot to the UN operations centre but fell in with a group of Turkish rescuers who took me to their field hospital set up farther up the hillside. The main hospital tents were still being erected so the doctors were treating patients under the shade of a line of trees. As I watched new injured people were carried in on stretchers (I mentioned in my introduction we still remain in the rescue phase). In the UN centre I met with two technicians from Telecoms Sans Frontiers (TSF) who offered to distribute our maps in this forward area. They have excellent internet connections using satellite communications - similar to ours - and also have a printer. The UN operations hub was at the centre of a small army of tents of every colour, located in a stadium. The UN team had little in the way of mapping and so I pointed them at our web site. Later, on the return helicopter trip, three stretchers with injured women and children were placed along the floor between the seat rows. A memorable trip and I arrived back in the office in time for a UN meeting.
Gerhard Putman-Cramer(left), head of the UNDAC team, planning logistics operations in Muzafarrabad using our mapping.
The map production process had, of course, continued in my absence. There was less demand and urgency today, and I wonder if cumulative fatigue is having its toll on the aid community and if the strain of grappling with huge problems is proving a challenge to even the best. Successes are being reported - medical facilities are being opened up in many places that were earlier inaccessible, and the stream of aid supplies is beginning to flow. No one is complacent and the managerial problems remain immense.
The Humanitarian Information Centre (HIC) team has now arrived and set up its office adjacent to us. Their equipment is provided by the UK department for international development (DfID) and is delivered by DfID in a trailer and includes a car to pull the trailer. Inside the container are all sorts of desirable goodies including a large size map plotter. Now that the HIC is present I intend to pull out the team on Saturday 22nd October having first handed over our mapping duties to the HIC.
In many ways a day rich in experience for all the team.
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Deployment Diary 
