Balakot declared red zone

Time seems to have stood still in Balakot, the once picturesque town that was flattened to the ground by the earthquake, which hit Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir on October 8 last year.
While in almost all other areas devastated by the quake, which killed more than 75,000 people, reconstruction work and efforts to rebuild lives and livelihoods are evident - in Balakot, almost nothing seems to have moved on over the past eight months, IRIN, the UN information unit reported.
People still live in frayed tents or in cave-like shelters carved out amidst the heaps of rubble. Schools, operating in tents, often lack blackboards, chairs or other basic amenities. Makeshift hospitals are run mainly by religious groups and other aid agencies have gradually drifted away and the shops near roadsides are operated by Afghan refugees.
"We are in a state of limbo. Everyone has left us and no one knows what will happen next. Even the reconstruction work has been stopped," Riaz Pervaiz, 50, a farmer told. He pointed to abandoned sacks of cement and small piles of bricks as evidence of suspended construction work.
In what amounts to an unprecedented event in the history of Pakistan, the country's government literally has decided to remove Balakot from the map. Instead, a new town is to be built, most likely at Bakrial, a site some 20-kilometre away from the existing city.
The site is currently a desolate moonscape of rocky hills, but government officials insist the new town built will be designed to resemble the federal capital Islamabad and will include modern housing, sewage and drinking water.
Seismologists have declared Balakot to lie within a 'red zone', spanning several major fault lines and say it is too dangerous for people to live in. The decision to move the town and its population of 30,000 people, of whom 2,500 perished in the quake, was taken in April 2006.
However, 200-km away from Islamabad, the people of Balakot still have little idea of what is planned for them. The news of the 'modern city' that is to be built brings little comfort.
"We have heard rumours that we are to be taken away somewhere else. Government officials have also been in and out of this place, but we have no idea where we are to go, when or how," Gulzaar Bibi, 45, said. Around her stretches a desolate wasteland of rubble, still lying deep on the ground. Like many of Balakot's inhabitants, she feels that they have been forgotten and asks: "We will move when they tell us, but how will we live till then?"
Some, especially the elderly, have deep sentimental attachments to Balakot as it once was and are anxious not to leave. "I buried two sons here. One three years ago, after a road accident, one after the quake. How can I leave their graves, those of my parents and of my brothers?" asks Ahmed Jan, 75.
His widowed daughter-in-law, Naseem Bibi, sitting a short distance away, however believes the move may help them forget the past and move on with their lives. Naseem's children are also traumatised by the aftershocks still felt and she wishes to bring them up in a safer place.
While confusion prevails, there is also deep anger in Balakot - anger that agencies and the Pakistani army have moved away, anger over the lack of medical facilities and anger about not having any say in the decision about their own future.
"Every decision has its critics. Balakot was wiped out in less than a minute.
It will take time to rebuild it," Earthquake Relief and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) Chairman Altaf Saleem told reporters in Islamabad while discussing the future of Balakot.
"We will not force anyone to move. It will be voluntary." He has also admitted that "relocating the city won't be easy and there will be problems," said District Co-ordinating Officer (DCO) Mansehra Shakeel Qadir Khan. People, however, seem resigned to a move, pointing out that if all government services shift, they too will have to go. Many seem almost indifferent to the plan.
"Our main interest is in survival. Whether here or there, our lives will be hard,' Ahmed Khan, 30, pointed out. "We will be sad to leave our beautiful home, but if that gives us a chance to live, we will go when the orders come. So far we do not know when that will be, and till then we must somehow manage to live on here," he added.