Pakistan Earthquake Shakes Foundations of Schools
Institute leader concerned about mountain area
Greg Mortenson knows firsthand about the beauty of the Karakoram Mountains — 62 peaks over 23,000 feet piercing the sky in a 100-square-mile area near the Pakistan-India-China borders.
There, in the valleys among those mountains, Mortenson has worked for 12 years, leading a nonprofit organization called Central Asia Institute.
Mortenson was a mountain climber who first visited the area in 1993. He was there to climb K2, the world’s second highest mountain.
He didn’t make the summit; instead, he made a decision — to help the people he met there. He returned to the United States and began to raise money, and three years later he founded the Central Asia Institute.
Under Mortenson’s direction, the institute has built 45 schools in Pakistan and more in Afghanistan. It also builds water projects, women’s vocational centers and community health programs, plants trees and trains porters for the region’s booming climbing business.
Mortenson has returned to the region 30 times, but he was at home in Bozeman, Mont., when a 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck Oct. 8.
His friends in the region tell him even the oldest men say it was the worst earthquake they have felt.
As the story unfolds in the region where millions of people are without food and shelter, Mortenson is in Montana, struggling with his emotions and working to help his friends more than 6,000 miles away.
“I can’t sleep at night, I’m so worried,” he says.
“I was there in the summer, and I go back Nov. 10. I want to get on the next plane, but I have to run the organization.”
Mortenson is worried not only about his schools and the people he has come to know and respect, but also about the world’s view of the disaster.
“Most of all, I’m worried that with the recent disasters, this will become a back-page news story in the next week or two.”
Mortenson has heard through friends and acquaintances that “all of our schools except for two are accounted for.”
“There is a severe disruption of telecommunications, so we are relying on people on foot and horseback to see how our villages are doing.”
Mortenson says the organization works in villages that sit about 120 miles northeast of where the earthquake struck.
“There are only a handful of deaths in the area where we work. In most of the places, people had between 10 and 30 minutes’ warning. But that doesn’t mean everything is OK. The damage was significant, even catastrophic in places. The earthquake triggered massive landslides of debris, mud, water, destroying or blocking roads that are the villagers’ only way to get supplies.”
In the smaller villages, people live in earthen houses that are safer in earthquakes than the tall concrete and rebar structures in the cities. “But that doesn’t make them safe during landslides,” Mortenson says.
News reports from the region mention the weather is “turning cold.” Martenson says the villages sit at 10,000 feet.
“To imagine how it is there, just think about an area in the Colorado mountains at 10,000 feet this time of year. It’s cold and frosty, in the 20s at night, and only 40 or 50 in the daytime when it’s sunny.”
Mortenson says his group has people in the earthquake areas.
“We are working with organizations that offer direct, immediate relief, but we focus more on things the people will need in two or three months.”
Always focusing on education, the institute is stockpiling tents and school supplies, he says.
The organization is accepting donations for its Education Disaster Fund, as well as its general fund.
“That disaster fund is for catastrophic events like this and will help kids for the next year,” Mortenson says.
“Some villages worked so hard to get a school in their midst. For many of them, that has disappeared and could be gone for a decade or two again.”
DETAILS
To donate to Central Asia Institute or learn more about the organization, visit www.ikat.org or call 1-406-585-7841.
© 2005 Colorado Springs Gazette
