not gone beyond foundation stage).
Massive corruption took place as money changed hands frequently from bureaucracy to patwaris and contractors mafia but no one has been held accountable so far. After all who is responsible for this delay in construction process? Where have those billions of dollars gone that poured in as foreign aid as result of Friends of Pakistan Conferences?
In Abbottabad, Turkish Islamic NGOs, constructed two schools in record nine-month time that are earthquake-resistant to the magnitude of 8.5 on the Richter scale. Red tape, corruption, bureaucratic lethargy, political interference and lack of will on part of successive governments thousands of government schools and dispensaries are still under construction.
Reconstruction and rehabilitation or lack of it apart, people who lost their near and dear ones, and in some cases many people survived as a single person either as a parent who lost his or her spouse and children or children who lost their parents and grandparents at a very tender age faced a greater dilemma.
They are still suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They have become psychic for their miseries were forgotten soon.
In order to cope up and deal with any future calamities National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and PDMAs were created at national and provincial levels. But these authorities also lacked expertise and proper training to respond in time to floods in 2010 and 2012 and in case of stranded tourists in Naran due to untimely heavy snowfall in Kaghan valley.
It is yet to be seen how the NDMA and PDMA are equipped to cope with the situation arisen in the wake of latest earthquake of October 26, 2015. This will determine whether we have learned any lessons from 2005 earthquake and our mistakes of the past. At least we can learn from Turkey and Japan to deal with such eventualities.
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