Observing first anniversary of the killer earthquake that struck northern parts of the country and Azad Kashmir on October 8 last, on that day thousands of lives were lost in the blink of an eye while leaving larger numbers of people injured and homeless and the nation is still trying hard to rub the ugly scars left by the horrible calamity.
At 8:55 on October8, 2005 one of the horrible earthquake measuring 7.6 on the international Richter scale struck the northern parts of the country and in a jiffy a number of villages, towns and cities were completely wiped out.
According to official figures 74 thousand people were killed by the earthquake, 100 thousand injured and more than three million people left homeless. At both NWFP and AJK, 16 thousand educational institutions were damaged and nine thousand educational institutes were completely destroyed.
Reconstruction of these educational institutions would cost Rs 500 million.
At least three districts of AJK including Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Rawalakot and Five in NWFP including Abbottabad, Mansehra, Shangla, Battagram and Kohistan were badly affected areas.
The total loss estimated by the government stands at five to six billion US dollars while it would take five years to accomplish the set target.
The earthquake affected 3.7 million population of 186 union councils of NWFP, 22,708 people died, 40,573 received injuries and 1 million were left homeless. Tehsil Balakot of District Mansehra literally turned into a graveyard and 14 thousand population of the area embraced death.
The meteorological department has recorded over 2000 aftershocks since then while the tremors continue to be felt in the affected areas. The continuously trembling earth coupled with harsh weather conditions of these hilly areas and difficult road and communication access are some of the factors hindering the speeding up the reconstruction work.
Although at a slow pace the life is returning to normal in the affected areas as a ray of hope could be seen in the eyes of the affectees. Taking the bull by the horns and girding up its loins the government of Pakistan despite meagre resources against such a large scale calamity tried its best to save the survivors of the incident and established Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) on October 24, 2005 to plan, co-ordinate, monitor and regulate reconstruction and rehabilitation in earthquake affected areas.
The major objective of the authority is to encourage self reliance via private-public partnership and community participation in the whole process of rehabilitation and reconstruction of earthquake affected areas besides ensuring financial transparencies.
The President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf held 'Donors Conference' on November 19, 2005 wherein a total of 80 countries and other international donor agencies participated.
The purpose of the 'Donor's Conference' was to seek international financial, technical and in-kind support towards meeting the cost of rehabilitation and reconstruction in the earthquake-hit areas.
Besides, the 'President's Relief Fund for Earthquake Victims 2005' was immediately set up. A total of 6,522 million US dollars were pledged during the 'donor's conference'. The World Bank pledged 1,070 million US dollars, Saudi Arabia promised US $573 million, USA assured 510 million dollars and UAE pledged US $200 million.
Initially the government established tent villages in a bid to provide temporary shelters to the quake-survivors and set-up mobile field hospitals in these areas to cater to the needs of the injured people.
Confronted with one of the most horrible and devastating earthquake in the history of the country, the government of Pakistan did its level best to save the situation from further deterioration and with the grace of Allah Almighty managed to get hold of it.
A large number of local and international NGOs, donors and relief organisations came for the rescue of the survivors besides the efforts of the government. To mention some of the national and international relief organisations that worked alongside the Pakistani government in health, education, social-sector, construction of mosques, water supply schemes and livelihood programmes, these include Nato, Government of China, Aga Khan Foundation, Mercy Corp, USA, USAID, Pakistan Red Crescent, UNICEF, WHO, JICA, ICRC, DFID and GTZ etc.
Talking to APP, Deputy Director Housing ERRA, Waqas Hanif Khan informed that Rs 30 billion have been distributed among 430,000 affectees for the reconstruction of their houses. He further informed that 27 percent of the affectees have started construction of their houses out of which five thousand are near completion. Second instalment of Rs 75 thousand has been released by ERRA to the affected people, he added.
He said that Balakot city would be relocated to Bakriyal city at a cost of $130 million and the project would be completed in three years. He said the new city would have all the modern civic facilities for a population of 100 thousand, he said adding that the NWFP government has provided land for the same.
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