hi,

back in islamabad. just took shower after a lapse of 10 days. in between it was only the showers of dust, blood and hope within. Alhamdullillah all of my team members are fine. however, i have to say one thing only at this time about what we did and saw in past 10 days. the destruction was evoked by the Divine hand and this land can only be restored by the Divine hand and Him alone. yes, its true that all the eyes I have seen which mimic life’s relentless struggle are only alive because those eyes had long back learnt how, when and to whom to submit, or else these bodies of dust and dirt wouldn’t have stood something as devastating as what we have seen.

as promised, i maintained my daily diary on pieces of paper under fire but i just threw all of them in neelam river yesterday before coming and to let you know i had already lost my mobile so couldnt contact no body. therefore, pls send your mobile nos., land line nos.

and lets pray in this holy month that Allah cleanses us so we all could become one - part of the Divine plan for being oneness. sorrows or happiness, I have seen that its good to be together werna zeest faqet bikhrao ka bas bahao hei… Peace and love for those who perished in this earthquake and strength for those who have to live the rest of their lives without their loved ones and their smiles.

we leave nothing behind us but fond memories of our spirits who reflect the Divine spirit’s glory and mysteries. Thus I left these valleys with a heavy heart with so many memories and memories alone. Many years from now, when I would visit this place again, I would not see the trees and mountains and rivers of this beautiful area but how once human spirits once again gathered together to demonstrate what an eternity each day may bring in the struggle to seek our destinies. It would remind me of the agony, pain and helplessness of Saiqa and Gulzaman whom I dearly wish to see again. It would also remind me of the shock, denial, resistance and the strength of coming out of this of this brave little child Sajid with whom we walked holding his hands and telling him how he should run to play with his Guddi (kite) or call his murghiyan (hen) and how after so many hours I saw his eyes opening after 16 days leaving so many smiles and reflections of passions in the eyes of mine, arfeen, usman and unaiza. These mountains would also remind of the unknown mother whose hands I struggled to capture till dr. nancy parker from France operated to cut her leg and she kept screaming of seeing her son’s dead body first before she leaves this world. She survived the surgery but died in front of my eyes of the pain of the fact she may never see her son’s dead body ever again as the rubble was too strong to be drilled by us. This valley would remind me of the glory and misery of human spirit. Of that face I have searched in these rivers and waterfalls and chilly nights. Of how higher can human character and self can lift itself and how all of us had to rise above our personal pains and sorrows. Of the losses of human bodies and smiles but the rise of human dignity and love at the same time. I would miss all of those with whom I travelled this far, Usman and Hafeez with whom we planned out first relief mission, Arfeen and Dr. Fehmida with whom I had once again shared so many valuable hours, Dr. Hashaam who survived 5 days on Imodium without using toilette (coz there wasn’t any), unaiza who was the only girl volunteer in our team apart from docs and who travelled on mountain top with me alone defying the height of 1600m which we covered in 100minutes, fahad who took care of our food and who had nothing but tears, gratitude and humbleness in his eyes after looking after and serving 1000 patients a day with dr. zahid and everybody else esp. the team of doctors with I worked many of whom would leave for alayee any time soon again despite the end of their leaves from their respective hospitals.

I have no doubt to say that people with whom you may die also share your common destiny and dreams just like those people with whom we choose to live happily ever after.

Long live God’s eternal message of peace, love and harmony.

Regards,
ej

I would ideally want a blog-like app rather than a wiki like app because of the user-patterns I have found in Pakistani audience. a blog would give an instant access to just about anyone to give his/her feedback and few authors to give their reports as to what are they up to or what’s required where.

As of now, there is one functional application http://missingpersons.dsl.net.pk already there and they haven’t responded to me once after two days. Though they did update the app with multiple options of searching… Few developers are, on the other hand, working on Tsunami’s Sahana software and still few good systems are being recommended by others. My intuition says that one application would be picked up or built from scratch and would be dictated by GHQ or Government suddenly and no one’d have no choice whatsoever. And it’s not just this application alone required to help speed up the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction….

I may be leaving for field work past Butgram’s area tomorrow with a team. Please initiate a community page (blog or wiki) as you think best according to the situation. And fw the message to following people at least:

mtahamasood@yahoo.com
asmakarim@yahoo.com
iabhopal@yahoo.com
harrisbinkhurram@hotmail.com
fursid@gmail.com

These people would ensure that the message gets across and people do come to participate and help others develop something good. The initiative can start mini projects like

1- Archive of Chronological News of the disaster
2- Archive of EarthQuake Photography (with copyright permissions and other legal requirements being fulfilled)
3- Brave Stories or such (like I know of two eye-witness stories which I would love to share with others)
4- I would definitely like someone or everyone to pen down their thoughts and figures about the International Aid Program and esp. doctors, some of which I have worked with in last two three days and would like to tell my side of stories as soon as I return to my home town or get some time
5- Other things related to Internet Technologies which can support or participate in anyway in this cause??

I would have my participation when I get back to my computer (which might be a week from now) but in the mean time, let other eager young minds explore what the life has brought to them in this disaster….

Best regards,
Ejaz Asi
Islamabad/Pindi

I have been called by some fine gentlemen as soon as the news of patient management system got spread. I was working as a volunteer to move patients in and out of these hospitals when I quickly had few meetings with surgeons and doctors at PIMS, RGH and DHQ… haven’t tried CMH because of few reasons though. But I have gathered initial assessment of HR, data requirements and few specs which I would have loved to share with you guys right away but since there are so many other things going on and I am just trying to give my best not to let these IT initiatives be a shame of Management, Team Work and Optimized level of motivation…. I personally believe to request and work with Islamabad based developers, analysts and QA gentlemen and in this regard, I would greatly depend and count on the efforts of Taha Masood (Ex-Nustian), Asif Malik (Ex-Fastian, IBM) and Asma Mirza (IIU) and Iftikhar Ajmal who’s been very helpful before my arrival here at ISB. I have yet to see both of strong contenders for Patient Management System and Missing People Database - Tsunami-tested Sohana http://sahana.sourceforge.net/ and THK’s own systems.

I am sending this email to the brilliant Angelo who’s been more helpful to many people like me through http://quakehelp.blogspot.com than other media. I believe Email is a notorious and human energy-intensive application not suited for communication beyond more than two persons. So, a sister-blog or whatever should be setup and managed by the same team of Quakehelp. If I was in Karachi or had more time, I would have taken this responsibility but if there’s anyone I can count on in these times, its quakehelp team who’ve collaborated, coordinated and managed digital information very effectively in disasters like Tsunami and Katrina. Angelo, please look into this matter urgently and post your message at your blog and/or setup co-authors accordingly. In this way, people needn’t call at my mobile all the time and I repeating the same things over and over and PASHA not sending emails to individuals and the same emails then re-routed to still more individuals. I had great hopes from the use of blogs in this disaster and despite the indifference and ignorance of traditional media about the brave bloggers who’ve not been quick to respond, I think we can really pull this together. PASHA’s president, Jehan Ara, PSEB, IBM and Intel representatives can be added as co-authors of the blog right away and Angel can setup an email account through which these writers can just post through their email applications. It may sound little Extra and daunting but believe me, email sucks big time and we are no NGOs or Government officials to rely on this highly inefficient way of communication.

I am insisting and coordinating with few web-savvy doctors to start writing their medi-blogs, diaries right from the hospitals where instead of existing capacity of 700, they are forced to manage 3000 and increasing no. of patients. These doctors can easily manage their blogs and daily diaries of incidents only they can tell. Ideally, I would have wishes podcasts. But in a country where the first collective serious blogging started no sooner than 14th Aug 2005 and now in this disaster, I think that might be little too cutting-edge for us. Though that’d be ideal in our case. I strongly urge islamabadians to visit these hospitals and meet the docs and improve their IT infrastructure as much as you guys can. Aside from few field hospitals which I visited only yesterday, thanks to army and UN teams, the local Pindi hospitals have doctors who can give you some time. Ultimately these doctors and NGOs would be reporting round the clock not the News Agencies (dont ask me why but that’s how public media should and would work in the new economy, I strongly believe and advocate).

I still haven’t got any update from Mr. Azhar Rizvi of THK Solutions who had already built a seemingly similar application of patient management system but anyone interested to talk to IBM’s representative Asif Malik and/or Srilankan developers bearing responsibilities of Sahana, please contact him at amalik@pk.ibm.com email him, then email me and then email everyone whatever you emailed and this would have wasted at least few hours (considering bandwidth problems) right away. So please we need a community blog where these coordination has to be managed and reported to the public and fellow IT people. Angelo, despite his location in Europe can still manage it, I am sure as Zohare and others have already been reporting rare news items from the Azad Kashmir at quakehelp.blogspot.com

I would also suggest the IT teams moving into the badly affected areas beyond Muzaffarabad to arrange GPRS devices and other gadgets which can report the places to Google Earth, which can then be put up online through Angelo, again. Only maps we have so far are from MapAction, I believe. Anyways, Act as you may please but act together.

Regards
Ejaz Asi
from Pindi/Islamabad

1. Have received emails from a number of industry people in response to my call for volunteers. My thanks to each one of you. Although I have not responded individually to each one, I have made the database accessible to Azhar Rizvi and he and his team will be calling on you for assistance in the areas that you identified.
2. Sabeen, Azhar Rizvi of THK Solutions has a Patient Management System. He will be calling Ejaz and arranging for its implementation in the medical camps.

3. Azhar is also working out of Rawalpindi/Islamabad on a Telemedicine initiative. I am sharing some of the details of his email to Shahida Saleem of Catco, Kamil Hasan of Intel and me. We are part of a small group that has been collaborating on this and other ICT based initiatives. If any of you are able to add any value to what Azhar is spearheading, please let me know. I would especially request our colleagues in Islamabad to offer any on-the-ground assistance that they can.

1. MOIT has arranged 15 INMAR SAT PHONES with data transmission features for the telemedicine project.
2. I met Dr Asif Zafar Professor of surgery and consultant, Rawalpindi Medical College and his team. He is also the President of the Pakistan telemed Association. We have established a tele-medicine help desk at RMC. They have an equipped lab , broadband connectivity and a telemed software. The lab and software can be deployed immediately however the bandwidth needs to be upgraded. For this had a meeting with Paknet MD who has agreed to DISCUSS with junaid MD PTCL to upgrade and reconfigure the fiberoptic channel, currently inactive at RMC. This would give them highspeed connectivity with their international exchange at rawalpindi. With the activation of this link we would be able to create a hub for connecting international as well as domestic hospitals with the Hospitals and field surgical units in the effected areas.
5. Established a team of 3 doctors and one network person as core telemed team at RMC. This team would be responsible to coordinate with international/domestic hospitals and help them link with RMC, liaise with Paknet for creating Internet accounts and fixed IPs for the field hospitals, collect data and present it on the web from all the field hospitals and patients admitted at local hospitals.
6. Met DDG SCO Col Jamil and he is agreed to train our doctors thru ITC as master trainers For INMAR SETS and basic data communication skills. Have another meeting on monday to discuss other services that they can render, however based on my hour long meeting with him and his other team members they are already LOW on resources and may not be able to give concentrated support.
8. Have arranged thurya phones thru Nokia to be supplied to a team of doctors surgeons from DMC.
9. PAKNET has committed its network and personnel in azad kashmir n isb/rwp to assist us in this project.
10. AKU has agreed to be part of the project

WHAT WE NEED:
a.Immedialty need volunteers to establish a help desk at MOITT or at PM RC.
b. Hardware equipment, preferably 15 laptops w digital cameras in the first phase to go out with inmar sat phones to the field hospitals.
c.15 2-3 kva Generators set for recharging the laptops and sat phones.
d. 15 low density scanners.
e. 2-3 dual processor intel servers to upgrade server farm at RMC.

Intel has been asked to provide the laptops and servers. Need assistance with the rest of the stuff.

4. Dr. Zakiuddin Ahmed of Medisoft Telemedicine Ltd has been linked up with Azhar so that there can be a collaborative effort. A mobile surgical unit is being brought in by Dr. Zaki that can be added to the existing equipment being used. I would like to thank Atiq or E-Commerce gateway for connecting us with him.

5. Syed Ahmad, CEO, Digital Prodigy (Pvt) Ltd has offered to provide expertise for project management and development in telemedicine application. This could include remote patient consultations and online effective resource management.

6. We have also got together a requirement document for a web
application that will incorporate various relief activities so that
there is some cohesiveness to the operations.

However IBM has a Relief Management System - Sahana - that was developed in Sri Lanka during the Tsunami. It will be looked at today so that it can be set up at the PM Secetariat and at the relief sites.

Sri Lankan’s Chamindra de Silva and another volunteer developer have arrived in Islamabad, as has a team from IBM, to deploy Sahana that is a Free and Open Source Software disaster management
system that handles missing/displaced persons, camp management, assistance, trading system, etc. These are the lead developers for the same system which was used in Sri Lanka to co-ordinate aid for the
Tsunami disaster.

P@SHA has offered its assistance. PSEB, Open Source Resource Centre, International Open Source Network UNDP-IOSN are already assisting them in Pakistan.

More information on Sahana:
http://sahana.sourceforge.net/
http://news.info-share.net/?p=8

7. Intel has announced a donation of US$1 million towards the Earthquake Relief Fund and is going to match all donations made by Intel staff worldwide. Kamil Hasan has also volunteered hardware and networking equipment that we may need to move forward with initiatives.

8. A team of ASP.NET programmers is being put together today to work with the UBL team to provide a web application requested by the PM Relief Cell.

9. According to Dr. Aamir Matin of MoITT, Telecom operators have expanded their services to cover
AJK. This is what we have learnt from the Ministry:

a. Only the SCO (Special Communications Organization) has the license to
operate in Azad Kashmir. This has been waived for two months, so that all
the mobile phone companies and the WLL companies are now free to provide
their services throughout the region. The companies are already
charging into the area.

b. VSAT telephony equipment has been ordered and is on its way. ITU, the
World Bank and WEF are paying for this. Solar powered batteries have also
been ordered.

c. PAKSAT, which is Pakistan’s own satellite, and which has enough free
bandwidth, will be used to provide connectivity to these VSAT phones, which
means that operational costs will be zero.

All of the above will be coordinated by SCO.

Just thought I would keep all of you up-to-date so that if anyone can assist in any way, please do contact us so that we can put you in touch with our teams.

Best regards,
Jehan Ara
President
P@SHA

An independent group of people is gathering goods, donations, medicines & have prepared a cargo, which is ready to leave for the following days.

October 12, 13 and 14

The cargo route will be from Karachi to Islamabad then from Islamabad, helecopters are arranged to cary the goods & drop them off directly to Muzafarabad and Aazad Kashmir

Here I’m listing some things which are most important and are urgently needed ther in MUZAFARABAD and AAZAD KASHMIR

* BLANKETS
* TENTS (wigwans, teepees)
* MEDICANS (Injectibles - pain-killers, drips etc)
* LIQUID MILK (Small 250ml packs - NO powder milk)
* BISCUITS (Small packs)
* WATER BOTTLES (Small - 500ml bottles)

You can contact and coordinate donations of GOODS or MONEY (preferbaly GOODS)

Contact Details for donations and details:

Rafhan Siddiqui
0300-2182404

Hadi Uddin
0300-2151473

Shahabuddin
0320-4051131

HOPE and KCCI are organizing blood donation camp for earthquake victims at the The Forum parking lot on 11th OCT from 7:00PM onwards.

Save lives!

Urdupoint.com Relief Fund
Address: Suite No.1508-1509 National IT Park Ceaser’s Tower Opposite to Ayesha Bawani School, Shahrah-e-Faisal, Karachi, Pakistan.
Voice: 9221-2789744

President’s Relief Fund for Earthquake Victims
All Branches of the banks State Bank of PAksitan, Habib Bank of Pakistan, United Bank, Mulsim Commercial Bank and Allied Bank of Paksitan.

Chk Payable to President of Pakistan Relief Fund
Address: Habib Allied International Bank Plc
97 Cannon Street London EC4N 5AE
Sort Code: 60-95-11 A/C 04916670

Khawaja Gareeb Nawaz Trust
Account #: 010-4843-0
United Bank Limited

Pakistan EarthQuake Relief Fund
Royal Bank of Canada
Branch No: 05600
Transit No: 003
Account No: 1009067
www.pakcan.com

The Petarian Foundation
12-A, Street 29, F-7/1
Islamabad, PAKISTAN
Tel: (0333) 512-5120
Bank account details are as follows:
Prime Commercial Bank Ltd.
78-W Roshan Centre, Jinnah Ave, Blue Area,
Islamabad
A/c no. 01881118
SWIFT PRCEPKKAISD

Funds to Consulate General of Pakistan
Account No : 00990-41526
Bank of America, California
For wire transfer:
Routing/ABA#121 – 000 – 358
Swift code: BOFAUS6S

Minhaj Welfare Foundation
ACC NO: 1269-69
Habib bank Limited
Minhaj ul Quran Branch
Lahore Pakistan
Tel:042-111-140-140
For Donations From The Foreign World Please Call our Head office in U.K:
0044-1282-723456

MKFR EARTHQUAKE RELIEF FUND
UBL Account #:0102598-5
For international transfer:
Swift code: ( U N I L P K K A)
Email:pukaar@mkrf.org

USA: BILQUIS EDHI RELIEF FOUNDATION
45-11 NATIONAL STREET
CORONA, NEW YORK 11368
TEL: 718-639-0633; 718-639-5120
FAX: 718-505-8001

Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation
Allied Bank of Pakistan Dastagir Colony
Account No: 3650-0

(CNN) — International aid organizations are accepting donations to help victims of the devastating earthquake in South and Central Asia. The groups include:

AmeriCares
http://www.americares.org/external link
(800) 486-HELP

American Jewish World Service
http://www.ajws.org/external link
(212) 736-2597

The British Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org.uk/external link
(44-20) 870-170-9240

The American Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org/external link
(800) HELP-NOW

The International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies
http://www.ifrc.org/external link
(41-22) 730-4222

The Indian Red Cross
http://www.indianredcross.org/donation.htmlexternal link

The Pakistani Red Crescent
http://www.prcs.org.pk/external link

Canadian Red Cross
http://www.redcross.ca/external link
(800) 418-1111

CARE
http://www.care.orgexternal link
(800) 422-7385

Catholic Relief Services
http://www.catholicrelief.org/external link
(800) 736-3467

Church World Service
http://www.churchworldservice.org/external link
(800) 297-1516

Christian Aid
http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/external link
(44-20) 845-700-0300

Concern Worldwide
http://www.concern.netexternal link
(353-1) 850-410-510

Direct Relief International
http://www.directrelief.org/external link
(805) 964-4767

Episcopal Relief and Development
http://www.er-d.orgexternal link
(800) 334-7626

Humedica
http://www.humedica.org/external link
(49-8341) 966-1480

International Medical Corps
http://www.imcworldwide.org/external link
(800) 481-4462

The International Rescue Committee
http://www.theirc.org/external link
(877) REFUGEE

The International Rescue Corps
http://www.intrescue.org/external link
(44-1324) 665011

Habitat for Humanity International
http://www.habitat.org/external link
(800) HABITAT

Islamic Relief
http://www.islamic-relief.com/external link
(44-121) 622 0622

MAP International
http://www.map.org/external link
(800) 225-8550

Medair
http://www.medair.org/external link
(41-21) 694-35-35

Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders
http://www.msf.org/external link
(212) 679-6800

Mercy Corps
http://www.mercycorps.org/external link
(888) 256-1900

Muslim Aid
http://www.muslimaid.org/external link
(44-20) 7377-4200

Network for Good
http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/international/earthquake/southasia…

Northwest Medical Teams
http://www.nwmedicalteams.org/external link
(800) 959-HEAL

Oxfam
http://www.oxfam.org/external link
(800) 77-OXFAM

Plan USA
http://www.planusa.org/external link
(800) 556-7918

Save the Children
http://www.savethechildren.org/external link
(800) 728-3843

UNICEF
http://www.unicef.org/external link
(800) 4UNICEF

UNCHR
http://www.unhcr.org/external link
(800) 770-1100

The United Methodist Committee on Relief
http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/external link
(800) 554-8583

World Vision
http://www.worldvision.org/external link
(888) 511-6548

Update:

Kazi Zulkader Siddiqui writes:

Would appreciate your adding the Petarian Foundation / Abdalian Association to your list of Aid Agencies working in the earthquake zone. We have set up camp in the villages near Bagh, AJK from where we are providing both relief as well as medical assistance. Our teams of volunteers are working closely with the affected population by going into the mountains to their homes and providing relief at their doorstep. We started our work within 2 days of the quake, and a week before the army or any other agency arrived in that region.

So far we have provided relief to nearly 10 villages in that area with a population of around 30,000.

Please visit our website www.pakistan-earthquake.org for more details.

Volunteers needed at PAF museum

As mentioned in some previous posts, a relief fund has been set up at the paf museum. the organisers require a large number of volunteers to make the packaging and transportation of goods as quick as possible. girls can also volunteer. the nature of work is:

1. arranging different types of goods (food, clothing, medicines, etc)
2. packaging of goods in plastic bags and cartons
3. managing the flow of traffic
4. taking out goods from cars and other vehicles

Please come forward once again and help in this (unofficially) biggest relief drive (yet) in karachi. the camp opens at 9.00 am and runs till late night. the camp will operate on monday and tuesday till further notice.

Everybody’s trying to do whatever one can… and this is actually the
time to do some action… i’ve been to PAF base in khi to drop off
some clothing blankets and food.. and to the response of the people
there is really great… people have been flooding in to donate
stuff… it was reallly great to see…. and we will be goin again
tomorrow to be the helping hands and do some volunteering work
there… everybody is requested to do whatever they can in their
capacity.. be it monitory or just being a helping hand… but do
somethin because NOW IS THE TIME!!