QUAKE CRUSHES YOUNG COUPLE'S DREAMS

Gul Mohammad had been married for just two years, but they were the best two years of his life.

But the South Asia earthquake of October 8, 2005, destroyed all that. The quake, which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale, wreaked a trail of death and destruction through three countries, and ruined the dreams of 22-year old Gul Mohammad.

The dreams of having and raising children, and the safety of a loving extended family, where all wiped out when Gul's wife, his sister-in-law, her two children, and Gul's two sisters, were all buried alive in the earthquake. The community of Jareed in the mountains of Pakistan was just one of many towns ravaged by that powerful earthquake.

By the time the despairing men of the family reached them, they were all dead. The family of 16 had been reduced by a single blow to only 10. Gul Mohammad felt as if the joy and life's breath had been drained away by the quake.

"We had just started our life together, and now it's all gone," lamented Gul Mohammad. "It was the most frightening moment of my life. The hills were shaking, and rocks came crashing down the slopes."

The earthquake killed more than 74,000 people in Pakistan. Muslim Aid has spent more than £1 million on rehabilitation work in the region in the one and a half years since the quake.

"After we came out of our shock, we started to think about the loss of our family members," said Gul Mohammad. "We started crying. We didn't eat for days."

Muslim Aid surveyed Jareed and surrounding areas along with international design firm Architects for Aid (A4A), and decided to build 100 houses in the quake-ravaged community. Villages on the peaks and steep slopes are really extended collections of scattered homes, most within eyesight, but not easy to reach, sometimes almost inaccessible.

"There's nothing left to rebuild and no time to rebuild," mourned Gul Mohammad. "Sometimes, we are thinking about moving down to the town to live in tents."

It is to counter a potential refugee crisis that these two British charities have decided to launch this project. Muslim Aid has established a project office in the community, which comprises construction staff and community mobilisers. Gul Mohammad is one of the lucky survivors who will get a house from Muslim Aid.

"We will have to pick up each and every stone and little piece of wood, and start again," said Gul Mohammad. "We'll work hard to earn money and rebuild. Thank you, Muslim Aid, for giving me a new life when I had lost all hope of forging a new life again."

(ENDS)