Thousands in tents after '05 Pakistan quake

Thousands in tents after '05 Pakistan quake

James Palmer, Chronicle Foreign Service

Saturday, November 15, 2008

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Clusters of weather-beaten tents and makeshift edifices of mud, stone and rock topped with metal sheeting sit haphazardly along terraces circling the mountains above the confluence of the Jhelum and Neelam rivers. Ubiquitous blue metal roofs of single-story prefabricated structures dot the streets while the dilapidated remnants of homes slammed by the quake rest battered and wounded.

25,000 residents have fled

Three years later, thousands of survivors in the Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir capital of Muzaffarabad, still live in tents and temporary structures while 25,000 of the city's 75,000 residents have fled the area.

Last month's 6.5 magnitude earthquake that struck southwest Pakistan, killing at least 200 people, injuring hundreds and leaving 15,000 others homeless probably will further delay reconstruction here in the north.

"They promised to help us as soon as possible, but it's three years later now and we're still waiting," said Raja Ashrif, 35, whose three-bedroom house was heavily damaged, forcing his family into temporary shelter. "We can't live in our house and we can't afford to repair it."

According to the city's development authority, only 450 of the estimated 1,500 damaged homes have been rebuilt. The situation is similar in other northern cities, where residents and local government officials complain reconstruction has been slow.

"Three years have passed and nothing has happened," said Raja Khan, reconstruction minister in Pakistan's Azad and Jammu state government. "Progress has been slow because we are totally dependent on the federal government and they have given us nothing so far."

The federal government's compensation to residents whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged - a little more than $2,300 and in some cases an additional $1,000 for loss of land - has done little to spur rebuilding. "This is not even a peanut," said Khan. "It's nothing to build a house with."

Mohammed Akbar, a manager with the Earthquake Additional Financing Project, says reconstruction is troublesome because of difficulties finding qualified contractors, transporting materials to remote areas and long winter months that complicate rebuilding efforts.

For Saleema, a widow who like most women in this part of Kashmir uses only one name, state payments were not enough to build even a simple shelter after her three-story home was reduced to rubble. Instead, she used the money to buy basic necessities, such as vegetables and clean water. To make matters worse, the 440-square-foot prefabricated shelter where she now lives - donated by the Saudi government - is too large for her slim parcel of land, and local officials have refused to modify it.

With few options, Saleema and her three adult children have pitched a tent on the site of their old home where they have no access to running water or electricity. "We feel helpless, but we've gotten used to living in this environment," she said.

The Great Pakistan Earthquake

On Oct. 8, 2005, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake ripped across a swath of 11,600 square miles in the Kashmir region of northern Pakistan, killing more than 75,000 people, and leaving scores of survivors with nothing more than their lives. It created an estimated $5 billion in damage, destroying:

600,000 homes

leaving an estimated 3.5 million people homeless.

75 percent

of Kashmir's health facilities

10,000 of 11,534

primary and secondary schools

$500 million

distributed to date by the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency to victims whose homes were damaged.

Source: Pakistan's Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency UNICEF