i was in islamabad when tragedy struck nd like many i was jolted out of my slumber by the earthquake. having lived in islamabad for more than 4 yrs, i have experienced many earthquakes, but this was by far the severest , most intense nd the longest. i reside on the 2nd floor nd when earth quake struck around 9 in the morning, i was asleep .i woke up nd thought that earthquak hitting islamabad is a normal phenomenon , so there is no need to panic nd it wud finish in 3-4 seconds but this was the gravest mistake of my life as the jolts gained in intensity nd it went on and on and on. for almost 20 seconds i was stuck there in a violently shaking building. i was hoping against hope that building wont collapse but deep down my heart i knew in pakistan buildings are usually not built to withstand this kind of tremors. in those 20 seconds , two thoughts crossed my mind : frist , by deciding to stay inside the apartment i have made the biggest but the last mistake of my life as i knew that chances r slim that i wud survie ; secondly i thought about my parents with home i talked with last night.
in those terrifying moments , the only thing i cud do was to pray and that i did fervently .finally after 20-25 seconds earthquake stopped nd i rushed down without even bothering to wear chappal fearing that jolts wud start again.
nd there i saw that everyone was out already nd one man told me that he could see the building swinging in the air .we stood there for 15-20 mins fearing that aftershocks would come .after some time , ppl started going inside their aprtments but i remained outside too scared to move in my room. as ppl started going inside , the aftershocks started nd ppl were again in the open nd this time they stayed outside for hours.
after half an hour after earthquake, we came to know about the news of margalla towers of f-10 came crashing down to earth. i , along with my friends, went straight to f-10 . there we saw tens of thousands of people surrounding the collapsed building . rescue teams were already there but they were almost helpless as they dint have the machinery to remove the mountain of rubble. there were some cranes but they were not effective enough.the flats in f-10 r the most luxurious nd expensive flats in islamabad. their rent range from 40-50 thousand rupees per month nd to buy one of those aparments the amount can touch carores. there were many foreigners in these apartments. now for such an expensive flats to collapse within seconds is perplexing.
we, in islamabad, experienced after shocks of earthquak the whole day . ppl were so petrified that they were not willing to go in their homes .most of the building had cracks nd those aftershcoks were making things worse.many ppl were gathered in f-9 park in camps. then came the night , there were warnings on tv that aftershocks would be felt during the night. most of the ppl decided to stay out but then another thing happened that dint help the matters. it started raining quite heavily nd with it came hailstorm . it continued for almost 2hrs. ppl were quite literally in dilemma , the couldnt go inside their homes coz of fear of earthquak and there couldnt stay out either coz of hailstorm. those were very difficult 2 hrs.when finally it stopped raining, temperature dropped quite dramatically nd ppl were out there under sky most of them with out any shelter nd sweaters .most of the ppl spent that cold night out under the open sky .there were several aftershocks during the whole night. even at sehri time , we experienced aftershocks.
many ppl had already left islamabad to realtively safer places nd were going back to their hometowns. on sunday,after 4-5 hrs of respite , came another strong aftershock nd i finally dicided to go back to my home in faisalabad. there was great rush on bus stations as ppl wanted to get out of islamabad. i was travelling by daewoo bus nd when i was 10-15 kms away from faisalabad on the motorway , the tyre of bus bursted nd it started wobbling at the speed of 100kms/hrs , all the khwateen started crying but driver did a good job by controlling the bus b4 ny serious damage cud come to passengers. finally i reached home in 5 hrs that normally takes 3 nd half hours .
those 20 seconds that i spent inside my apartment were the longest 20 seconds of my life, every second was like n eternity , never ending. this harrowing experience will live with me for the rest of my life.
i hope nd pray that we can get through this very difficult time nd my heart goes out for those in azad kashmir nd northern areas where situation is beyond words to depict .
Re: reliving those terrifying moments
awwwwwwwwwwwww
Re: reliving those terrifying moments
It was aweful,horrible!
Me and my family still cannot come out of the shock we experienced and are still experiencing. We all need ur prayers everyone,please.
Re: reliving those terrifying moments
Yes Naina, everyone of us is praying for Pakistan and Pakistaniz.... things will be fine InshAllah....
Re: reliving those terrifying moments
definitely, u all are in my prayers
Re: reliving those terrifying moments
glad to know u're fine. our prayers are with everyone... may Allah have mercy on us...
Re: reliving those terrifying moments
everything will be all right insha Allah . but always remain vigilant nd exercise caution. my prayers are with everybody who has endured nd still enduring this agony.