|
In a miracle of sorts, a woman has been found alive
under the debris of her home near Muzzafarabad in Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir 64 days after the massive 8th October earthquake
and is undergoing treatment in a local hospital.
Forty-year-old Naqsha Bibi was rescued from the rubble
of the wrecked Kamser refugee camp by some people who
were digging to retrieve the bodies of their kin on
Sunday evening, said Hafizur Rehman of the Pakistan
Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) hospital.
Over 200 people died in the Kamser refugee camp, six
kilometres northwest of Muzaffarabad, in the 8th Oct
temblor. The quake, the worst in Pakistan's history,
killed more than 86,000 people and rendered over 3.2
million homeless. Earlier, a 29-year-old man was rescued
from the rubble of his house in Balakot in the North
West Frontier Province. Naqsha Bibi was rushed to the
PIMA facility where her condition is stated to be out
of danger.
Doctors say she does not bear any visible wound or
cut on her body. However, she is malnourished and 80
percent of her muscles have withered.
"She has been admitted to the intensive care
unit of the hospital and we are closely monitoring her
condition," Hafiz, the in-charge of PIMA Field
Surgical Hospital, told reporters.
The villagers who dug the woman out said pieces of
rotten food were found in the hole where she was found.
She might have survived by drinking rainwater, Hafiz
said.
He said: "We have started administering liquid
to control the dehydration she is suffering from. She
is improving and we do hope she will survive."
"It is miraculous that she survived two months
under the debris," said Riaz, another physician
of PIMA.
| 
