We finally arrive in Muzzafrabad in good time for our feed and find a media village near the Prime Ministers house in a posh district of town. Other houses here and in the city haven’t fared as well at all.
One bridge to get over the river was only just wide enough for the car and being a suspension bridge it dipped as the car rolled over it. Thankfully just one car at a time.
We headed off to find some of the international rescue teams in the old part of the city. This was a place about 1/2 a mile square with small alleys, all interlocking with no planning, for the two or three story buildings - that you now have to climb over. It seemed a domino effect had brought most of them down as they were so close together. The smell of death, so noticabel in Banda Aceh was also starting to become more noticable in some areas.
We found a Turk team tyring to get a woman out - working with passion, and verve but not much regard for safety. Also a Brit / German team who had found a survivor under a collasped house with a sniffer dog and were preparing for a 24 hour dig to get them out. All as volunteers with disaster NGO’s these guys are quite amazing.
Our edit suite wasn’t as nice as my one in Delhi - or Battal but it did the job. Had to get my travel pillow out though - those boxes are very hard.
Bedtime - Richard takes the hard man route and in the morning is fairly wet from dew.
Me on the other hand am a bit more organised. Better than you may think and only the top of the sleeping bag getting wet from where it pokes out from the roof!
Chiade was sensible and slept in a tent.
There was a big aftershock that night and we found out the next day that the Brit team were very close to finding their survivor 16 hours after we had seen them, but the building had shifted 6 inches, colapsed a bit more, they withdrew and then could not get any further signs of life. The next morning they were very very subdued.
The Turks though did get their woman out alive a couple of hours after we left, to much well deserved cheering and celebration from onlookers.
