Unfinished business

The aftermath of the 2005 earthquake, which devastated towns and villages across Kashmir and districts of what is now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, lives on with us even 10 years after the tremor, the anniversary of which is to be marked early in October. The schemes and programmes promised at the time to save people from so much death and suffering in the event of another calamity have still to be completed. At least 80,000 people died in that disaster, with many more injured, tens of thousands displaced and millions rendered homeless. One of the projects promised by the government was the establishment of the New Balakot City. Balakot, in the Mansehra district of KP, was deemed to stand on a fault line and therefore prone to devastation if another quake hit. Other cities in the country were also found to be located along similar fault lines. With Balakot almost entirely flattened by the fearsome tremor of 2005, and a very large number of its 30,000 or so residents killed or otherwise affected, it was decided that to keep them safe from future peril, a new city would be created 20 kilometres away from the existing one. This is still to happen.
The federal and provincial governments have been locked in argument over the acquisition of land to build the city. Rs1.5 billion was dispersed to the KP government which handed it over to the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, but there was a failure to gain hold of the land with its occupants refusing to move away. This led to clashes. The result is that today at least three sectors of the new city are still occupied by their former residents. There are other issues too. The people of Balakot were always reluctant to move, arguing that they would not leave their homes where their ancestor’s graves lay and where they had lived for generations. Assisted by international agencies, they have rebuilt houses in old Balakot as well as schools and other infrastructure taken away by the quake. They hold also that the location for New Balakot is based along a wind corridor and not suitable for habitation in cold weather conditions. What we see then is yet another story of monumental government failure, with the meteorological department reporting that tremors of over six on the Richter scale are likely to occur with increasing frequency. Tens of thousands of people in Balakot remain at grave risk. There has been a failure to look after them and move them to a safer location. There has also been colossal mismanagement in acquiring the land and, it appears, the giant organisations including ERRA set up in the aftermath of 2005 have failed to perform what should have been their most fundamental function.