Wasted years

Precisely a decade ago on Thursday, the worst earthquake in Pakistan’s history struck Azad Kashmir and neighbouring areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Towns were destroyed, and villages disappeared from the face of the Earth. The majority of the 73,000 people who were officially stated to have died were in fact children, buried under the rubble of their schools. Women caught inside homes as the 7.6 tremor hit early on the morning of October 8, 2005 figured next on the list of casualties. 130,000 were injured; 3.5 million rendered homeless. This year, the day was marked as the ‘Day of Disaster Awareness’ in Kashmir. Sirens rang out across the territory and a moment’s silence was observed in all government buildings across the country. While these are important gestures, they do not answer the real questions of what we have done to prepare ourselves better for any such future disasters or to what extent we have been able to rehabilitate the families affected by the 2005 quake. Many issues linger on. It has been pointed out that despite warnings from experts that cities including Islamabad lay in a quake-prone zone, close to a fault line, high-rise buildings have cropped up in many cities and towns including the Azad Kashmir capital Muzaffarabad which had been flattened by the 2005 earthquake. There is little reason to believe that any proper process of building inspection has gone into the construction of these plazas and housing complexes. We have learnt nothing from the tragedy of Margalla Towers, the multi-storey apartment building which collapsed in Islamabad, killing so many under its rubble. Inquiries suggested it had been poorly built.
Our lack of thought for people and our disregard for lives extends further. Whereas the quake made it clear that many of the schools which collapsed, most of them government buildings, had been built using inferior material it is far from certain that anything has been done to ensure this callousness is not repeated. Quake-proof buildings are still rare even in the worst affected areas, mainly because much of the post-quake building work was chaotic and carried out by affected families eager to once more have a place to live in. There are other administrative problems. It has not been possible to build the city of New Balakot – planned as a place where the residents of Balakot would shift since the city lay right along a fault line – because there is a dispute over its land acquisition by the government from its owners. People have generally set up homes once again in the old city, reluctant to move. The failure to include them in the decision-making process is one reason for this. There is much else to think about. Schools and buildings set up in areas where thousands were disabled do not cater for their needs. The injured, including those with spinal cord injuries, were not provided shelter. And there is still doubt over how well-prepared bodies such as the National Disaster Management Authority set up after the 2005 earthquake are to handle disaster and ensure there is preparedness which can in the end save lives. All this shows that as a society we have not learnt our lessons. Governance and politics must return to their basic purpose – the security and wellbeing of the people.