Two years after a devastating earthquake, Azad Kashmir is on road to recovery and AJK Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan says his people owe a large debt of thanks to international community. Plans to reconstruct thousands of permanent homes, along with schools, hospitals and roads, are well under way.
"With Nato, the United States, NGOs, people realised this would not have been possible without their help. Definitely, it has helped change perceptions of Kashmiri people toward the outside world," Sardar Attique added. The quake killed an estimated 48,000 people in and around Muzaffarabad, a city of about 500,000. Many more died in outlying areas.
One of the most difficult remaining issues is what to do with those whose houses clung to tiny terraces on steep hillsides. Not only did they lose their homes, but also the land it sat on when entire mountains lost their soil and vegetation within minutes, leaving white granite scars that now overlook the city.
Temporary shelters have corrugated steel, plywood walls, sealed with plastic tarps bearing a UN logo, fastened to bamboo frames. Insides are immaculate, some with beds doubling as sofas, others with thick carpeted floors.
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