Wake-up call

The sudden and swift earthquake of severe intensity that jolted the Northern belt of Pakistan on 8/10, resulted in colossal deaths and destruction. Most horrific was the entrapment of hundreds of school children on that fateful morning under the rubbles of their collapsed school buildings.
The entire nation from Karachi to Khyber was stunned by this catastrophe. PP of PPP-P, Qasim Zia, had apparently gained political mileage out of this unprecedented calamity and said that the shifting of tectonic plate was caused by poll rigging. In fact, he himself is guilty of misstatement since no LB polls were held in AJK (the worst hit by the tremor).
To rub salt to the wound, he demanded of the government to repent and provide all kinds of relief to the victims as if he and his party have no emotional and moral obligations towards this national tragedy when not in power.
However, the traumatised people were resurrected by the spirit of the holy month and rose in unison to face this dreadful tragedy under the benevolent leadership of Maulana Abdus Sattar Edhi. The search and rescue efforts gained momentum with the deployment of the Armed Forces, NGOs, and concerned party/public volunteers.
The operational objectives got further boost with the arrival of first help in men and materials from Turkey, UAE and a team of experts laced with latest search and sensing equipment from the United Kingdom.
This was followed by instant response from all over the world and cargo planes soon made a beeline towards Chaklala airbase with loads of essential supplies to help Pakistan.
While the charities pour in, we must go through introspection to identify the root cause of our trial and tribulation.
It is a wakeup call for the OIC and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in particulars to stop wastage of millions of kgs. of halal meat and billions worth of animal hides every year while millions die of hunger in the Muslim world alone.
With little common sense, finances and simple technology, all those sacrificial meat can be vacuum-packed in tin cans and stored or sent to the needy on behalf of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Charities).
In general, it is also a wake-up call to all the other governments of the developing countries suffering from utopia to arm themselves with necessary technological resources on priority basis and be prepared to combat unannounced natural disasters like floods, tsunami, tremor, mud slides, volcano eruption, epidemics and thus avoid total dependencies on inflow of charities from abroad which may arrive too late and too little to urgently meet the basic needs.
Had commonsense prevailed, the government could have set up a central disaster combat and control system long before the PM flew over Islamabad for aerial survey.
Most importantly, it is a wakeup call for the greedy opportunists to scrap the New Murree City project proposed to be built near the latest epicentre and divert the allocated billions for: building link roads to every nook and corner of the country and for the acquisition of a fleet of Air Ambulances, Cargo Helicopters, C130 Airborne OTs. Hanging bridges, Laser cutters, Floating Navy Hospital, Hospital on the rail, Fire proof Community Tents, Mobile Oxygenarator and Water Filtration Plants, Night lamps, Heat sensing devices, civil defence appliances, and all other precision equipment which the foreign rescuers were equipped with.