It was many years ago that I met that woman in Shondeep. It was after the cyclone in Bangladesh in 1991. Our helicopter had landed in the damaged airstrip of Patenga airport in Chittagong. There had been no fire, so why were the leaves all charred? What had happened on that fateful night of the 29th April? My questions to the ‘experts’ resulted in the standard response. The NGO workers told me of the bags of wheat they’d given out. The engineers talked of the torque of the wind. The government officers spoke of the funds they had allocated. Then the woman spoke. In a quiet but controlled voice she said, ‘The land became the sea and the sea became a wave’. In Sri Lanka too, I had arrived after the event. The Tsunami had come and gone. I then went to Telwatta, where the train Samudra Devi (The Goddess of the Sea), had been devoured by the wave.
8th October 2005. The quake in Kashmir took on a different form. While I had felt the pain of the Tsunami victims and their survivors, the predominant coverage of tourists and western ‘experts’ had angered me. As an aid worker and later a photographer after the Tsunami in Colombo, I could relate to the resilience of the victims, but the aid efforts had changed. There were many more ‘experts’ in the fray and I could see how the media and other major players determined how things panned out. News of the quake in Kashmir, also filtered through slowly.
It was Amjad the driver who brought it home as we approached Ballakot, when he said, “This was a city. Now it’s a graveyard.” They had not come across the army, government officials, NGOs, but as in Muzaffarabad city, they were just getting on with their lives. Rebuilding their homes before the snow closed in. Winter came and went. Many survived the bitter chill, but months later, and nearly a year on, much of the talked about reconstruction was yet to be made. The pledges seemed to have been forgotten.
Cluster bombs, warheads, bombs that dig deep before exploding, compete with burning oilwells, toxic spills and nuclear dumping, to shake our fragile earth. Rampant consumer cultures arrogantly shun treaties to curb our destructive habits. In a globalised world where material and human world resources are fodder for exploitation by giant nations and business entities, nature in its fury reminds us that our lives are entwined.

Author’s biography
Shahidul Alam is a Bangladeshi photographer, writer and activist with a special interest in education, new media and ICT. He is a former president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society and set up the award-winning Drik Picture Library. He also set up the Bangladesh Photographic Institute and Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography and is the director of Chobi Mela, the festival of photography in Asia. He is currently visiting professor at the University of Sunderland and Regent’s Lecturer at UCLA.

Contact address: The Drik Picture Library, House 58, Road 15A (New), Dhanmondi Residential Area, Dhaka 1209, Bangladesh.

Cauliflower (2 December 2005) One of the worst affected areas was Village Narr Tarr in Leppa valley. A girl with a cauliflower in the Al-Fajjar Foundation AusAid Buddhiara Camp. The camp is supported by the Edhi Foundation.		Refugee toy (2 December 2005) One of the worst affected areas was Village Narr Tarr in Leppa valley. A boy plays with a hand made toy in the Al-Fajjar Foundation AusAid Buddhiara Camp. The camp is supported by the Edhi Foundation.		Snowline (1 December 2005) This family in Narak lives below the snowline. Inaccessible either by jeep or by helicopter, we could only get to them after walking for miles. We were the first outsiders they had seen since the quake. The old man points to the remains of his house where his son was killed as the roof caved in. His wife was hurled from the roof. Though she survived the fall with broken limbs, she died on hearing her son’s death.		Mosque (2 December 2005) A man prays in a broken mosque by the Neelum River near Phutticka village.
Open for Business (3 December 2005) Not far from the Neelam River, a demolished restaurant is open for business, customers being served under the open sky.		Sheep (3 December 2005) Livestock remains the mainstay of the villagers. Sheep graze near refugee camps in Haripur.		Three (2 December 2005) Friends of shopkeeper Muhammad Fareed in Chakkar Bazaar gather in the shop for a chat.		Prayer (3 December 2005) A man prays in the rooftop of a collapsed building in Ballakot, formerly a popular tourist resort.

Family in tent (4th December 2005)
Many tents sleep 8-12 people. This tent, part of a camp setup by a British NGO, is near the Manserah Abbotabad Road.