Almost one year after a devastating earthquake in northern Pakistan, survivors continue to grapple with rebuilding their lives, said the United Nation's (UN) Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Pakistan, Jan Vandemoortele.
"With the donors, we strongly believe that as long as we can show that there is progress on the ground, that schools are going up, that hospitals are being rebuilt and that roads are staying open, I think every donor that made a pledge at last year's donor conference here will want to be part of that success story," Vandemoortele said in an interview to IRIN, the UN information unit.
To a question that how would he describe the current situation on the ground and where were we now in terms of relief and reconstruction? He said, "I think the relief effort was efficient and impressive. Most people agree. Work was going relatively very well and reconstruction was taking place. More than 300,000 families have been paid the second instalment for the rebuilding of their houses [the Pakistan government provides homeowners approximately $3,000 to rebuild]. You will see that when you go into the area building was occurring all over the place".
There were however two groups of people who were seeing less progress. It was the urban people especially those people who live in the so-called 'red zone'. Those were parts of Balakot and Muzaffarabad, which have been declared no rebuilding zones because of the fault lines.
Actually all of Balakot, a city of about 30,000 people needs to be relocated elsewhere, as do 5,000 to 10,000 people in Muzaffarabad. They have to be relocated and you can't do that overnight. Plans were required, land must be purchased and assessments need to be done, he said.
The second group of people was those who remain in camps. We had over 300,000 people in camps during the winter. Only about 10 percent were left now, with about 35,000 people still living in camps. Those people were mostly there because they have become landless due to the earthquake and landslides, or they have physical handicaps. Most people have pulled out of the area, including the camp management, and the conditions in those camps have not improved.
To a question about those living in rural areas UN official said that people in the villages and hamlets were busy doing their farm work and livestock. But most of all were busy with rebuilding their houses. This was occupation number one.
Its amazing the amount of material, cement, wood and all other building construction material that was going up into these areas. As the numbers indicate, we probably have close to 400,000 houses that were being rebuilt at the same time.
About the most pressing issue, he said the issue was to ensure people who were not able to rebuild, have adequate transitional shelter, shelter that will probably have to last for 3-4 years because those new buildings, those new cities and towns will not come up within 1-2 years. It's impossible.
"We have to make sure that those people have adequate accommodation. That is not in tents. We are determined to make their winter this year better than last winter. Alternative materials are being brought in so as to avoid the number of tents.
The second challenge was health for all the population, both urban and rural. We had extremely good coverage last winter because of the many field hospitals coming in from all over the world. Many of those people have now gone back for normal, understandable reasons. We are testing whether the existing infrastructure is up and running to cover the needs in winter because we will of course be seeing incidents of influenza, flu, bronchitis and pneumonia and we have to be ready to respond to that.
Responding to a query, he said there were about 35,000 people that continue to live in camps. We estimate that between 10,000 and 20,000 people will come down the mountains again during the winter. Then we have an urban population of about 70,000 that will have to be accommodated.
"The government now is putting up as many prefabricated structures as possible to give to those families, especially the urban ones. But of course we can't have prefabs for all those people. Prefabricated housing is the first option and several countries, including Saudi Arabia, are bringing in several thousand of those prefab options. But we are looking at other options such as corrugated iron sheets with wooden frames so there will not be any tents".
There had been some hesitancy on the part of the government in using prefabricated housing. But now they have realised that rebuilding entire neighbourhoods and towns is going to take more than one year. Some people still believe this can be done in the next two years. My position is that if it can be done in the next five years, it will be a success. We need accommodation for those people for at least three years.
To another query, he said the policy in Pakistan was not for the government to rebuild. The government has decided to subsidise the owners for them to rebuild. The subsidy was about $3,000 per house. We estimate that there were about 600,000 units that fall into this category. Of course you can't start giving out those subsidies without doing a proper assessment of the house. Is the house really damaged or destroyed? Who was the owner of the house? There were many claims, but the claim had to be lawful.
All these things take time. The engineering inspection, the legal search for ownership takes time. As of the end of August, of the 600,000 homes they have already done 500,000 assessments and 370,000 payments have already been carried out [the second instalment]. It's a rolling thing, but it can't be done any faster. Otherwise, there could be mismanagement or misappropriation.
UN official said most people in the humanitarian community do not believe that the numbers of people coming down from the mountains will be as large as last year. The rebuilding of the houses was going on, but the people have emergency shelter to pass this winter. Their house will be finished next year. It will not be finished this year. But it doesn't mean that the people don't have adequate shelter.
"What we are doing with the government is ensuring that food and emergency shelter, especially the iron-corrugated sheets, are in place in the foreword areas so if it comes to an emergency we can quickly set up some structures. We also have a stockpile of winter tents in case we will need them. And we are bringing in a small fleet of helicopters, again as part of our winter preparations, in the event that this winter proves to be a hard one".
About the failures, he said the failures are that our helicopter fleet could have been used more efficiently. We had a huge fleet. You will remember that at one stage we had 27 UN helicopters.
"One lesson that we have learned is that next time around we should immediately start charging the passengers and the cargo with a fee. That way, there is no frivolous consumption and we create a bit of a revolving fund so for this winter we would have depended less on the donor generosity and been able to book those three or four helicopters that we want to have on the ground this winter. This will be a difficult case with the donors. Most of the donors do not believe there is a need for that. We want to be cautious and want to have that little fleet on the ground".