URI, Kashmir, 11 October 2005 — For a villager living in a remote part near the line of control (LoC) a clear starry night in late autumn should have been heartening. But, for the 68-year-old Atta Mohammad happiness and joy are forgotten words. The silver light from the sky has in fact heightened his misery for he can clearly see the remains in ruble of his house under which are buried all his dreams and belongings. That he and his family escaped alive is a glimmer to this tormented villager.

The sky was also behaving strangely. There was no remorse in the sky about the tragedy that had struck the earth a day before. The stars and the sky appeared as remote in their behavior as their distance from this planet. All Atta Mohammad could arrange for breaking Ramadan fast was a handful of water he collected from a water tanker parked near his house. Beyond this lone water tanker there was little evidence of any relief and rescue by the administration in the town.

“They provided us a tent without any erecting poles,” Atta rued. “The administration failed to provide us succor when we needed it.” “I was sleeping in my room when the earth started shaking. My two sons ran out only to return and they virtually dragged us out of the house,” said Atta Mohammad.

The tragedy was not special to this family of seven. Atta’s wife, 60-year-old Sara Begum and four children including a daughter are no different from the hundreds of their neighbors who are helplessly looking at the sky in this town where more than 80 percent homes, school buildings, government offices and even small bridges have been completely destroyed.

The tragedy simply couldn’t have struck the locals at a worse time. As autumn draws to close the ensuing winter could well be a lesson in survival for the thousands of residents here who must either migrate out or brave it out in tents. The entire township which bustled with life till the other day looks like a haunted place with fear writ large over the faces of those who have survived the anger of Nature. Officials say139 persons were killed here within less than two minutes as houses crashed as if they were made of ice. The injured have been evacuated to the Baramulla district headquarter where the more seriously injured ones have been referred by the doctors to Srinagar city.

It was a day of burials for the tragedy stricken Uri locals. Grave diggers sweated it out for the whole day as demands for more graves started pouring in from all over. It was definitely not the end of the world, but the lined up bodies in white shrouds created the semblance of death having established itself firmly in a place that bustled with life just a day before. “After the transborder shelling had stopped on the line of control two years back and the starting of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, we thought our fortunes had turned for the better. Who could imagine that the bolt from the blue was yet to come?” said a frustrated Gulam Sarwar Khan, 67.