An avalanche slamming into a remote village in Kohistan, the most under-developed district in NWFP, has claimed a large number of lives. While lack of telephonic system in the affected area and difficulties in approaching the high altitude hamlet stand in the way of determining the exact number of those dead, estimates based on information from local rescue workers vary between 36 and 52 mortalities.
In both cases the loss of life is substantial. What has added to the difficulties of the local volunteers trying to rescue those buried under tons of ice with the help of spades and shovels and bare hands is the inclement weather. Whatever little help could have been provided by the ill-equipped district authorities in Dasu, at a distance of 70km, is not reaching the affected hamlet because there is no paved road in the area.
That this should be the situation 62 years after freedom from the colonial rule and the creation of Pakistan is a reflection on the performance of our rulers. Any hope of rescuing the injured who also include women and children lying under the debris is fast fading away. According to Kohistan district Nazim the government has not started any rescue and relief work despite repeated requests.
The injured cannot be taken to hospital because all approach routes are blocked so they are being kept in mosques. The DCO has said the provincial Disaster Management Authority had promised to send a helicopter, which would carry food, blankets and tents to the affected valley and airlift the injured. According to him this too has failed to happen on account of heavy snowfall.
Untrained officials, with no heavy machinery at their disposal are wringing their hands in despair and maintaining that little could be done to save the endangered lives. There was another report of huge mass of snow slamming into a road about 150km west of Kohistan, burying a number of construction workers returning to their homes. While four bodies have reportedly been retrieved, three are still buried under the avalanche. In May last an avalanche hitting a village in Azad Kashmir had killed 24 people.
Disasters are not confined to the remote areas of the country alone. Even major cities like Karachi and Lahore have shown lack of capacity to deal with disaster-like situations. People of Karachi have suffered for days, sometime for weeks, from the catastrophic effects of rainstorms.
This affects not only the common man or small businesses but also large factories and the country's exports. In Lahore huge fires in shopping areas have caused immense losses to businesses because of the inadequacy of the city's fire-fighting system. The district governments have not always been successful in ensuring that the large structures meet the minimum-security demands like fire-fighting equipment, emergency exits, lifts and proper parking facilities.
Despite a fast increase in population and building structures, an equal increase has failed to take place in the capacity of the city governments to deal with natural or man-made disasters. What is more, it indicates the pathetic condition of the overall disaster management in the country.
The great tumbler that killed over 50 thousand people in AJK and adjacent areas in NWFP in October 2005 had brutally exposed the country's incapability to deal with disasters. This had prompted the government to issue the Disaster Management Ordinance 2006 and set up a National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) under the new law.
Whatever movement was undertaken subsequently by the organisation has been slow. As advised by the NDMA the government established the National Institute of Disaster Management. According to a media report the Authority is trying to acquire 50 kanals of prime land in Islamabad and has already paid Rs 136 million to CDA.
What one expects is that the NDMA would be able to plan for dealing with all possible disasters in the country and undertake a large-scale and effective capacity building programme at the level of the provinces. One also expects that it would itself supplement the efforts undertaken by the provinces and city governments. Increase in bureaucracy and official structures has to be justified by performance.