Pakistan: Hearing partly good news, on Radio Muzaffarabad ( reliefweb )

Pakistan: Hearing partly good news, on Radio Muzaffarabad


by Jean-Herve Deiller

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF...8V?OpenDocument

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, Oct 30 (AFP) - Some of the staff lost a partner in Pakistan's massive earthquake, others are mourning one or more children, but all of them want to broadcast again to their stricken city.

Engineers, journalists and workers alike have returned to the ruins of the studios in devastated Muzaffarabad to relaunch what they call the voice of Kashmir, Azad (Free) Kashmir Radio, FM 101.

"We're starting again from zero," says Mohammad Ilyas, the station's editor in chief.

A one-kilowatt transmitter has been sent from the capital Islamabad and nearby a wooden cabin serves for the moment as the office.

Most of the original radio and television studios lie in a pile of rubble overlooking the main street in Muzaffarabad, where nearly half of the disaster's 54,000 victims died.

One building was left standing but cracks snake through the walls, scaring off volunteers who remain wary of the daily aftershocks from the 7.6-magnitude earthquake on October 8.

Less than half of the station's 50 employees have returned and they all bear the scars of the quake. Radio engineer Mohammed Rafiq Mir lost his wife and a daughter, while adminstrative chief Mohammed Ishaq lost his wife and a son.

All of them have had their fill of sadness and suffering, but they are willing to help the other victims of the earthquake in Kashmir, by far the worst hit region.

New manager Sardar Ali, who was brought in from the northwestern city of Peshawar where he was in charge of local public radio and television, has set up his office -- a camping table, a bed and a telephone inside a small tent.

"Radio has three guiding principles: information, education and entertainment. At the moment we are concentrating on the first two," he tells AFP.

For information, Azad Kashmir Radio is telling the public about where aid centres are located and where they can get vital food and above all tents as winter draws near, Ali says.

As far as education is concerned, the station is explaining to victims how they can help themselves. This morning, a young doctor from Karachi named Munawar told listeners about first aid and vaccinations, he adds.

"For entertainment we are playing music to inspire people, religious and mystical music, like Ghulam Farid Sabri, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan...," Ali says, referring to two of Pakistan's best known singers.

Muzaffarabad's reborn voice is also a way for people to look for their missing relatives and friends.

"Every day, we receive more and more appeals from people from Karachi to Quetta asking us to find loved ones whom they haven't heard from for nearly three weeks," says radio chief Ilyas.

"But it's very difficult. We try to send someone out to check when someone gives us an address, but there is so much chaos," he said regretfully.

Azad Kashmir Radio resumed its broadcasts on October 23, 15 days after the quake. Transmitting from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm - with a two hour break in the middle of the day - it has a range of 45 kilometres (28 miles).

But there is still one major handicap - a lack of radios among the population.

"Radio is the favourite broadcast medium in Kashmir, especially in the mountain villages. But people have lost everything, and getting hold of a radio is obviously not a priority," says Sardar Ali.

"If you know any aid agencies that could distribute radios, tell them to do it quickly, it's very important for these people."

jhd/sg/dk/ag AFP 301556 GMT 10 05 Copyright (c) 2005 Agence France-Presse
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 10/30/2005 1027

Where there is a will, there is a way ! Well done to these people for helping others!