MUZAFFARABAD, 15 October 2005 — For a country with an emerging education system, last Saturday’s earthquake in northern Pakistan was particularly cruel, killing teachers and students who represented hopes for the next generation.
The timing of the quake — just before 9 a.m. — could not have been worse.
Schools and colleges in the region’s capital, Muzaffarabad, and surrounding towns and villages were packed when the quake brought most of them crashing down.
“All the students and teachers were present. Unfortunately, Saturday is our working day, it was the time that activities were in full swing,” said Ghulam Mustafa Shah, principal of the wrecked Government Education College in Muzaffarabad, the region’s teacher training college.
The region’s administration has effectively collapsed and many officials are either dead or have left the devastated area for other parts of Pakistan.
Education Department officials were unavailable for comment and no one knows the quake’s true toll but Shah estimated 10,000 students and teachers were killed.
Shah is proud of Pakistani Kashmir’s education record, saying the region’s literacy rate is 65 percent and primary school enrolment nearly 95 percent. But most of those schools, as well as colleges and the city’s university are now in ruins.
“Buildings were constructed, teachers were trained, audio-visual aids were bought and libraries were established,” he said.
But all that now lies in ruins.
Rescue teams have been digging the bodies of children out of schools across the region over recent days as distraught parents and relatives look on. Hundreds of bodies still lie under the rubble.
A British rescue worker said 900 children were killed in one school alone, most crushed to death at their desks as their school collapsed on top of them.
“The infrastructure was destroyed, including the education department, and the talented people were lost. It will take much time to improve,” Shah said.
“It is the greatest loss. We lost our talent, our future,” he said. “I feel quite miserable and sorrowful. It pains me very much.”
Shah said he had no idea who was alive or dead.
The headmaster of a middle school just outside Muzaffarabad said he was at work when the quake stuck but managed to rush out of the building to safety.
Saeed Bukhari’s school escaped relatively lightly. Out of 150 children, 25 were killed and 72 injured. Two of his 15 teachers were killed, he said.
“Unfortunately the cream of the generation has gone. It is a great loss,” said Bukhari, who is also living out of an army tent in the city-center Jalal Abad park.
“It will take much time,” Bukhari said when asked how long it might take the education system to recover. “There’s no government, no administration or law and order,” he said.
Some had lucky escapes.
Shah’s son, Mubashar, is doing a masters degree in business studies at Muzaffarabad’s university and was on the way to classes when the quake struck.
“That day I was late,” he said. His college was destroyed.
