Rising toll

The toll of the people killed in the earthquake with its epicentre near Mirpur in Azad Kashmir brings back immediate memories of the 2005 disaster which also hit AJK and adjacent areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. According to the reports still coming in, 37 persons at least are now reported dead, most of them in and around Mirpur, and over 500 injured. An assessment is being made by the NDMA of those who have lost shelters and those in need of rescue of other kinds. NDMA chief t-Gen Afzal says that at the present foreign aid is not required. The earthquake measured 5.6 on the Richter scale compared to the mark of 7.6 which killed at least 90,000 people in October 2005. Some of the areas hit, including Bagh, Rawalakot and villages surrounding them have been hit again, albeit on what till now appears to be a milder scale. We should however remember that it took well over 24 hours for the full extent of the 2005 disaster to reach the rest of the country, given that much of the impact was in remote mountain villages almost inaccessible from major roads. Naturally, we hope that this time rescue work will proceed more quickly and the family and kitchen tents promised by Lt-Gen Afzal will be delivered immediately to the families in need of them.

The question however is what we have learned from 2005. The latest quake immediate brings up a number of questions. According to reports from the ground in Mirpur and surrounding areas, the proposal to build new cities away from the fault line that presents a constant danger to people living in Balakot and parts of Mirpur were never put up. Instead, land mafias grabbed some of the land and three story structures have appeared in some places prone to quake disaster. These are obviously not quite what international experts had in mind when they suggested lightweight, low structures built to create least human damage should an earthquake arise in an area which is prone to them. We should ask ourselves why we are so unable to learn even from the most horrendous natural disasters to hit our country. The same is also true of schools. While most government schools are believed to have been built according to instructions issued at the time and follow quake-resistant designs, private schools have cropped up at random and the children enrolled in them are no safer than their counterparts of 2005 who died under the roofs and walls of their educational institutions. The largest death toll in 2005 took place in schools scattered across the area.

We also hope Pakistan will be sensible when it comes to accepting foreign aid. It may be correct that it does not require aid in terms of food or medication for now, but the trauma suffered by people and their needs should also be considered. There is no loss of pride in calling in expert help when it is needed. For now, as repairs begin on the gaping cracks in roads that appeared even in the Punjab city of Jhelum as well as Mirpur itself, we should question the state of disaster readiness in AJK and other areas, not just for earthquakes but also other hazards such as landslips and torrential rain.