Hams play role in wel­fare and recov­ery efforts after Pak­istan’s floods
The med­ical and food sup­port being pro­vid­ed to the many peo­ple affect­ed by the flood dis­as­ter in Pak­istan affect­ing six mil­lion peo­ple is being assist­ed by the com­bined efforts of radio ama­teurs, a group of four wheel dri­ve enthu­si­asts and the Pak­istan Acad­e­my of Fam­i­ly Physi­cians (PAFP).
Around a quar­ter of the coun­try has been affect­ed by the floods over the last three weeks that were trig­gered by intense sum­mer mon­soon rain­fall swelling the Indus Riv­er into Pak­istan’s worst ever flood. The Unit­ed Nations esti­mates 20 mil­lion have been affect­ed in Khy­ber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pun­jab and Sindh provinces and 1600 lives lost.
One of those involved with the Pak­istan Ama­teur Radio Soci­ety (PARS) emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions effort, Asad Mar­wat AP2AUM reports that more than 20 hams are keep­ing lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tions open and the plan is to increase this to 30 in a week’s time.
With both land­lines and mobile phone ser­vices failed in the flood affect­ed areas, he said that most of the radio traf­fic is through a 2‑metre band repeater which is now linked to two home­brewed 2m/70cm cross-band repeaters or trans­la­tors extend­ing cov­er­age to a radius of almost 300 miles.
A few sta­tions are mon­i­tor­ing 7.040MHz but due to poor prop­a­ga­tion is cur­rent­ly of lit­tle use, but should be kept clear for dis­as­ter use. Asad AP2AUM advis­es that PARS has teamed up with the Islam­abad Jeep Club which is a group with mem­bers who own and dri­ve 4WD sport util­i­ty vehi­cles (SUVs).
Their exper­tise in dri­ving on most dif­fi­cult ter­rains is prov­ing to be of great assis­tance to deliv­er essen­tial relief sup­plies and med­ical help imme­di­ate­ly after the flood. They are also work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Pak­istan Acad­e­my of Fam­i­ly Physicians.
PARS Pres­i­dent, Nasir Khan AP2NK express­es its thanks for the offers of sup­port that have been received from the ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ty. Pak­istan’s nation­al radio soci­ety is seek­ing to finalise arrange­ments includ­ing those from neigh­bour­ing coun­tries to con­tribute to and help sus­tain the emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions that will be required for a con­sid­er­able time to come.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man, IARU Region 3, Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.