Pakistan zoo offers refuge to quake survivors

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan -- Ghulam Fatima's grandchildren used to love to come to Muzaffarabad's tiny zoo, mesmerized by the birds flitting about the six cages.

Now they are on the inside, looking out.

In a region short on shelter after an Oct. 8 earthquake killed at least 87,000 people, the cages have become temporary dwellings for six families, including 70-year-old Fatima, four grandchildren and a daughter-in-law.

Like 3.5 million other people in northwestern Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, Fatima lost her house in the quake.

Roaming the streets for two hours, all she saw were toppled homes and bodies. She walked toward the prime minister's house, figuring it surely must be standing, only to find the front part of the building had collapsed.

Then she spotted the nearby Jalalabad Zoo. The birds, mostly imported from China, were in a panic, straining to flee their cages.

Fatima opened the door, stepped in and the birds flew out. She had found a new home.

"I used to come here with my grandchildren, as it was the best place for them," Fatima recalled Tuesday. "They were always happy to see the birds chirping and flying in the cage.

"We used to watch from outside the cages, but now people see us from outside."

Fatima and other residents of the cages say their new homes have benefits that are lacking in the tent cities that house the homeless, including one at the zoo.

The cages are sturdy and unlikely to collapse if there is another big quake. The families can light a fire to cook and stay warm as the Himalayan winter settles in.

"Can we do that in the tent?" she asked.

Within hours after Fatima moved in, she had new neighbors as five other families arrived, throwing plastic sheets over the roofs and using cloth to fill the gaps between the inch-thick bars.

Now each 8-foot high cage is home to about 10 people.

Among them are 15-year-old Bilal Zahid, who said he visited the zoo the day before the quake and now shares one bird cage with his parents and five siblings.

His father, Zahid Abbas, is a government employee who fears the hundreds of aftershocks that shake the area.

Jalalabad Zoo once drew about 1,000 people daily. Liaquat Hussain, the deputy commissioner of Muzaffarabad, said the quake has halted plans to expand it by adding four monkeys. The government wants the people to leave, but they are reluctant.

"I don't know whey they are preferring to live in these bird cages," Hussain said.

Abbas said the answer is simple -- safety.

"Nobody likes to live in cages but we will not vacate it until we are able to find a better shelter then this," he said. "It was the safest place we found."

He said the government gave them a month's notice to leave the zoo, but they have no plans to comply. "We will not do it," Abbas said. "We will not obey until a better home is given to us."

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