Tragic end to ‘quake search

By Rebecca Fraser
AN ENDEAVOUR Hills man’s desperate bid to find his sister and family alive in earthquake ravaged Pakistan has ended in tragedy.
Naveed Khan travelled to Islamabad after receiving news that the 10storey apartment block where his sister, her pilot husband, and three teenage children lived had collapsed in the mass earthquake that reached 7.6 on the Richter scale.
Last week Mr Khan’s wife Samina told the News that her husband was still clinging to hope that his sister Nellum Fajjud who lived in the penthouse apartment with husband Sajjad and sons Hammad and Sunny and daughter Kinza would be found alive.
But these hopes were dashed late last Wednesday when rescuers found the five bodies in the rubble.
This week Mrs Khan said the family was absolutely devastated by the news.
“After six days the rescuers found them (the bodies) on Wednesday.
“It is very, very sad as she was the only sister they had.
“Their whole family is finished now.
“All the family is gone — wife, husband, three children, all gone,” she said.
Mrs Khan said she was very upset that she could not attend the family’s funeral last Thursday.
“I wish we could have been there for the family but my daughter is in Year 12 and has exams,” she said.
“This has been a very upsetting and a difficult time for the family but for her especially it has been hard.
“My husband will come home next week and they have said that things are slowly being cleaned up over there.
“It is just so sad,” she said.