KARACHI: The ground is covered with huge rocks and slabs that have slid down from the hillock behind. A few bamboos, tart, drums for holding water, crushed trunks and some clothes lie strewn on a side. There is no furniture and no sign of the people these things belonged to at the place struck by tragedy in Block-1 of Gulistan-i-Jauhar early Tuesday morning.

You hear crying mixed with violent coughing and people fussing over someone across the road and turn in that direction to find an aged woman wailing for her loved ones crushed under the rubble. “They are all gone, all gone, oh my son, oh my children,” the woman kept repeating as others urged her to sit down in the shade and have a sip of water.

“Let me stand in the sun. There is no shade now, the harsh sun will be on me always, get away from me, you can’t bring them back,” she screamed, her voice hoarse.

“This is Razia, my khala. Her 25-year-old son, young daughter-in-law and three little grandchildren were crushed under the rock that fell on them a little after midnight. They were all asleep then,” said Tahira Bibi, helplessly watching her aunt. “Her brother and sister-in-law and their two children also died,” the niece added, wiping away her own tears.

A total of 13 people, including seven children and three women, lost their lives in the tragedy. Razia Bibi’s son Ghulam Fareed was a rickshaw driver. His wife, Rehana, was only 22 and the eldest child, a daughter named Muqaddas, was five, another daughter, Sadaf, three, and the youngest, a boy named Mohammad Ahmed, just two years of age. The others killed are a family of four: Mohammad Ayub, 50, his wife, Nasreen, 45, and their two daughters Mahira, 12, and Zahira, just four months. Another family of four comprised 26-year-old Khursheed Abbas, his 20-year-old wife Fatima and their sons Azan, 3, and Ayan, one year old.

“We were all related and are from Khanpur in Rahim Yar Khan. We came to Karachi some 10 to 15 years ago in our search for a better livelihood. A few years ago, I moved to a small three-room house nearby with my family but they decided to stay here. Well, not everyone can afford to pay a Rs10,000 rent each month. Here they paid Rs1,000 a month. Electricity was also provided to them through the kunda system. The water they brought themselves from a little ahead. Things were working out for them as well as the people who let them build their shanty huts here as this way no other squatters could take over their vacant land,” Tahira Bibi, the niece explained.

”There would be an occasional falling rock from here or there breaking a plate or glass, but never in our wildest of imaginations did we expect something like this to happen,” she said.

There was still sand pouring out from the hillock from where the rock had fallen. A huge crack on the top left in the hillock threatened to fall any minute. Police personnel asked the people gathered at the tragedy site to move back. “You’ll all get crushed and then we’ll be held responsible for allowing you to come so close to this dangerous area. Step back please,” they said.

Strangely, the hillock was not sloping. It stood straight at 90 degrees. “Building trucks scrape off mud from the hillock to use in construction,” said Rab Nawaz, with a bandage around his head. He was also asleep with his family when the rocks fell but escaped with minor injuries. “My brother and his family died here. It is a dreadful place. And these hillocks, are not solid rock, they are hardened mud. The rich,” he pointed to a neighbouring building, “raise fortified walls against the hillock to prevent spilling of mud during rains or storms into their backyards, but people like us brace ourselves for all kinds of calamities in this city where you can’t even find a decent roof over your head. Now, please if you excuse me, I am going home to bury my dead,” he said.

Earlier, rescue workers rushed to the place and pulled out the bodies from under the rubble in a very bad shape and shifted them to the Edhi morgue. They were then handed over to the families of the victims, who expressed their desire to bury them in their ancestral areas in Punjab.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2015

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