"The Destruction is Overwhelming"

Mercy Corps Global Emergency Operations team member Susan Romanski stands in a schoolhouse damaged by the earthquake. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps.

After nearly two days of transit, the moment had finally arrived. I was being driven in a Mercy Corps vehicle from Kerman to Bam, a 200 km drive in southeastern Iran. The route took us past some spectacular mountains. The towering peaks are jagged and a continuous range, similar in appearance to the Bitterroots in Western Montana. The very tops are dusted with a light coating of snow, a stark contrast to the unbelievable amount of brown that makes up the rest of the visual scene. The valley floor is rough land, very arid and devoid of any plant life taller than knee-high sagebrush. At times riding the well-paved two-lane road, I find the area strikingly bland.

It was not until about five kilometers outside of Bam that the moment I had been bracing my mind for finally arrived. It was there that I first began to notice the earthquake's impact. A lone tent sat in front a house that was little more than crumbled brick. Then there was another tent in front of another destroyed house. And then another and another. Soon the whole highway looked like the driveway of a summer RV campground. Tents of various colors, distributed by various relief agencies, are nestled next to one another, in some cases a mere inches from the side of the road. These are just a small portion of the 75,000 people who have displaced since the 6.6-magnitude earthquake shook the earth for 12 seconds in the early morning hours on December 26.

We continued further into town to where the commercial center used to stand. It was not long before the devastation became almost a cliche. Just when I thought that it couldn't get any worse or there couldn't be anything more horrible, there was. Hospitals no longer are recognizable. Cars sit crunched jutting out into the road. Children with broken legs hobble on crutches over the cracked and bent roads. The 2000 year-old Arg-e-Bam citadel looks like a bit of deformed potter's clay. Men pick through their destroyed houses looking for any scraps of goods they can recognize.

Taken as a whole, the destruction is overwhelming. On an individual basis it is even worse. There is a story behind each pile of rubble and more likely than not the story involves deaths and shattered dreams. One look into the eyes of the children and parents sitting besides their roadside tents reveals a vulnerability that I did not expect to see almost a month after the quake.

As the sun sets on another day in post-earthquake Bam, I am struck by the idea of how an earthquake is really an equal opportunity disaster. It changes the lives of rich and poor, young and old, men and women. In this town that is so far from my own home it is writing a new feature for everyone who remains. I take comfort in knowing that Mercy Corps is going to play a big part in helping to shape this future.