An earthquake of devastatingly high magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter Scale (RS) badly hit the northern part of the country (particularly Punjab, KPK and Azad Kashmir). As reported by the Pakistan media besides Lahore, tremors of the October 26 earthquake were also felt in Gujranwala, Sialkot and other Punjab regions. The UAE, India and Afghanistan too were jolted by the quake. Needless to say, the high intensity of the tremors generated by the quake sent shivers down the spines of the fear-stricken people. Everyone being deeply concerned about the welfare of their near and dear ones hectically got down to establishing contact with them. But to their utter dismay the quake temporarily affected the telecommunication network and they were unable to establish contact with their relatives.
It has been reported that the epicentre of the quake was in the Hindukush mountain range and it was 193 km underground. Experts say that the October 26/15 earthquake is the severest of all the quakes which have hit the country in over six and a half decades of its existence. It is said that over 270 people were killed, hundreds injured and thousands rendered shelterless by this earthquake. If one remembers, the October 8, 2005 quake that devastated the northern parts of country (Kashmir and KPK in particular) was of a magnitude of 7.6 on the Richter scale. It caused massive destruction and about 100,000 innocent men, women and children had lost their valuable lives in the catastrophe.
Undeniably, the 8.1 magnitude earthquake that hit the country on October 26 could have caused destruction beyond one's stretch of imagination. It, in fact, could have taken a very heavy toll on the lives and properties of the people. The Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, and the Chief of the Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, promptly responded to the calamity by directing the concerned government authorities and the military personnel to undertake rescue and rehabilitation work in the quake-hit areas on a war footing. While quick response of the government and the Pakistan Army to the tragic incident is worthy of appreciation, yet the urgent need to take log-term measures to deal with such gruesome and devastating natural calamities cannot be overemphasised.
In its endeavours to set forth stringent policies vis-à-vis construction of particularly high-rise buildings in the earthquake-prone northern regions of the country, particularly Islamabad, the government must direct the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and similar civic bodies in other quake-prone regions to immediately form an experts' panel of professionally qualified and highly experienced structural engineers to make a thorough assessment of the extent of damage the recent earthquake has caused, particularly to the high-rise buildings in the capital. This is extremely essential if a catastrophe of greater magnitude is to be avoided in future. Equally important is the issue of quick rehabilitation of people badly affected by the quake. The government must immediately gear up the concerned government agencies to urgently undertake rehabilitation work, in the affected regions, to bring respite to the quake-stricken people.
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