Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak stressed that formulation of comprehensive preventive and preparedness strategy to mitigate catastrophic effects of earthquakes and other natural calamities has now become inevitable after recent horrifying earthquake.
He told that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government and the PTI central leadership has started brainstorming on such a plan adding that effective implementation on building control codes for both urban and rural areas would also be ensured to avoid human causalities that often caused by natural disasters as well as absence of adequate preventive measures particularly in upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The Chief Minister said that relief and rescue operations were in full swing now in all earthquake-hit areas of the province and the provincial government has dispatched essential relief goods including food items to Malakand Hazara and other calamity-hit parts of the province.
He asked the health and relief authorities to fully mobilise their resources for to rescue and rehabilitate the affected people and also directed the revenue and the district administrations to conduct a detailed survey of the affected areas in order to ascertain the losses of properties and public facilities including roads and other communication infrastructure.
He was talking to district administration, hospitals' authorities and media during his visit to Shangla, Timergarah, Lower Dir, and Swat districts of Malakand Division on Tuesday. Chairman Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf Imran Khan was also accompanying the Chief Minister.
They also went to hospitals and inquired after the health of injured persons and also issued directives for optimum care of the patients who were injured by earthquake. They also expressed sympathies with the earthquake victims and their families and assured to take every possible measure for their rehabilitation. The Chief Minister and Imran Khan were informed by the PDMA officials at Alpuri, Shangla that death toll in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reached to 185 while over 2000 were injured, and Shangla was the worst hit district of the province where 38 persons were killed due to earthquake.