Radio hams help Pakistan earthquake victims

GB2RS News has received reports of radio amateurs helping in the relief effort following the devastating earthquake that struck the Kashmir region of Pakistan in October.

Nasir, AP2NK, president of the Pakistan Amateur Radio Society, said: “It is a terrible situation with destruction over a big area of difficult mountain terrain. Radio hams and short wave listeners are helping in the distribution of relief items. More teams are moving into different towns so that welfare messages can be exchanged as the available telephone network is overloaded.”

He also informed RadCom that radio amateurs were working with the official radio network of forest stations to help exchange welfare messages in areas where telephones were not available.

Horey Majumdar, VU2HFR, reported that: "There has been some ham disaster communication from Pakistan ” mainly on 7.100MHz. He also said that hams from Turkey had entered Pakistan to assist in relief operations.

VU2RBI, meanwhile, said that Pakistani hams had been relaying earthquake-related traffic, but admitted that few amateur radio stations had at that time been established in the hardest-hit areas, some of which are very remote with difficult access.

The earthquake is estimated to have killed more than 55,000 people, injured another 78,000 and left three million homeless. There are fears that the death toll could rise higher if the homeless are not provided with shelter before the onset of the harsh Pakistani winter.

Source: GB2RS News - Courtesy of the RSGB