AS YASMEEN LARI LOOKED out the car window across the Siran Valley in northeastern Pakistan, she grieved for what was no longer a lush vale with rolling green hills, trees and mountains. It was October 2005, and the catastrophic earthquake that had killed some 79,000 people in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan a week earlier had reduced the valley to mud and rubble.
The 65-year-old architect was there to help lead the reconstruction of settlements, but she had never done disaster work before. Lari was filled with anticipation after a two-hour flight from Karachi to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, followed by this five-hour drive.
Darkness had fallen before her driver pulled into a dimly lit army camp where the military rescue operation was based; at 1,500 metres it was safer from aftershocks and rock slides than lower ground. When she stepped out of the car she was taken to the commanding officer, who talked to her about the villages that needed immediate help. The enormity of the task ahead hit her full force.
Lari, who had become Pakistan’s first female architect in 1964, was renowned for designing slick towers of glass and concrete. But here, she’d be drawing plans for earthquake-resistant homes using stone and timber debris. Working from a rough cottage near the camp, she’d spend the next four months working with volunteer architects and engineers from Pakistan and abroad.
She would send her drawings with the volunteers, who walked through difficult terrain to reach mountain hamlets. There, they’d assist displaced families with sorting debris and building new and improved homes, even as temperatures plunged and snow began to fall.
Denne historien er fra November 2023-utgaven av Reader's Digest India.
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Denne historien er fra November 2023-utgaven av Reader's Digest India.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Calendar Girls
After Molly Baker’s husband died suddenly, her friends organized a year’s worth of support
THE GREAT WILDEBEEST MIGRATION
It's a spectacular sight when countless ruminants cross the Serengeti in search of greener pastures
Soumitra Chatterjee's Tryst with Destiny
The encounter that led a budding actor to a legendary filmmaker, and sparked an iconic creative partnership during the golden age of Bengali cinema
Frozen in Time
The life and work of Vittorio Sella, a pioneer of early mountain photography and the man behind some of the very first images of the Himalayas
HALLUCINATIONS
There was a monkey perched on the IV drip stand to the right of my hospital bed. It scowled at me, but I wasn’t afraid: A brief simian visit was part of my daily routine. I never questioned why there was a monkey in the hospital. I wasn’t lucid enough to recognize that my mind was playing tricks on me.
Music in the Air
Cuba is bursting with sound, and each region moves to its own defining rhythm
SHOULD YOU TRY A DETOX TREATMENT?
It's a popular new-year health habit. But science doesn't support it
Ringing True
He thought his late parents' wedding bands were gone forever
14,000-FOOT MIRACLE
The skydiver fully expected to die when her parachute failed to open. Instead, she's writing the next chapter of her life
I SURVIVED!
THREE UNUSUAL MEDICAL EMERGENCIES, AS TOLD BY THE PEOPLE WHO NEARLY DIED FROM THEM
