Earthquakes

Disaster Prevention and Management

ISSN: 0965-3562

Article publication date: 1 May 2007

238

Citation

(2007), "Earthquakes", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 16 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2007.07316bac.003

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Earthquakes

8 October 2005 Pakistan

A strong earthquake has struck parts of Pakistan, northern India and Afghanistan, causing panicked residents to pour out into the streets. In Islamabad, buildings shook and walls swayed for about a minute shortly before 0900 hours. Residents in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and in the Indian capital, Delhi, are also reported to have felt the tremor. The US Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of at least 7.6 and the epicentre was north-east of Islamabad. Japan’s Meteorological Agency put the magnitude at 7.8. “We can say that it was one of the strongest earthquakes [ever] felt in Islamabad,” Mohammad Hanif, an official at the Pakistan Meteorological Department, told the Reuters news agency. Police in the Pakistani city of Lahore told the Associated Press news agency that at least eight people were injured and four shops were damaged. Part of a 19-storey building collapsed in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, reports say.

9 October 2005. The BBC reports today: Pakistan said more than 18,000 have been killed by Saturday’s powerful earthquake, which also hit northern India and Afghanistan. The 7.6-magnitude quake, with an epicentre 80 km (50 miles) north-east of Islamabad, flattened entire villages. Another 40,000 people are believed to be injured, said military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan. The earthquake, which hit at 0350 UTC, 8 October, was felt as far away as the Afghan capital, Kabul, and India’s capital, Delhi. Several aftershocks followed. It is thought to be the strongest earthquake to hit the region in a century. In one incident, around 250 children were said to have died when two schools collapsed in the North-West Frontier Province’s Mansehra district. About 200 soldiers are also thought to have been killed by landslides and falling debris. The earthquake’s epicentre was close to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Kashmir. Rescue teams have reportedly been airlifted into the city. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said almost 50 percent of all homes in the area had been destroyed. Landslides have blocked all access roads to the city, where there is no electricity and telephones. Rescuers worked through the night in the ruins of the upmarket Margala Towers residential complex in Islamabad. Heavy diggers tugged huge chunks of rubble off a mound of collapsed, compacted apartment floors. More than 20 bodies had been found by this morning and about 90 people were pulled alive from the rubble. The tower blocks were the only buildings to collapse in Islamabad. Indian officials reported nearly 300 deaths in Indian administered Kashmir, among them 15 soldiers. The town of Uri, close to the Line of Control that separates divided Kashmir, was worst hit, with 104 dead. The administration is working overtime to restore essential supplies like electricity and water disrupted by the earthquake.

9 October 2005. The World Bank has offered $US20 million to Pakistan to cope with the devastating earthquake that has killed over 19,000 people. World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, who is on a visit to Tokyo, also urged international donors to coordinate efforts to help South Asian nations battered by the earthquake, rather than trying to compete over aid. The International Development Association (IDA) is the World Bank’s main lending arm for poor countries. Mr Wolfowitz stressed that international donors should not get into a race to compete over aid. Many international donors have already offered rescue teams and aid to Pakistan. Japan, Britain, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates were among other countries dispatching immediate help.

10 October 2005. As per the press news the death toll following Saturday’s massive earthquake rose to 35,000 on Sunday, with 30,000 victims in Azad Kashmir alone. The death toll in NWFP reached to 9,000 including 7,000 deaths in Hazara. At the Margalla Towers, Islamabad 25 deaths have been confirmed. Thousands of people trapped under the debris of collapsed building in AJK and NWFP districts. The worst hit place was Bagh, 40 Kilometres south-east of Muzafferabad, about 6,000 to 7,000 people are estimated to have died in the town and adjoining areas. Azad Kashmir has been severely affected by the earthquake. Out of a population of 2.4 million more than half is affected by the earthquake. Almost 70 percent of the buildings in Muzafferabad, capital of Azad Kashmir have been destroyed or damaged Some 25 helicopters belonging to the Army Aviation, the Air Force and the crises management cells are engaged to shift the injured people to the hospitals of Murree, Abbotabad and other hospitals. These helicopters are in operation of taking relief workers and materials to the needy areas. The Azad Jammu and Kashmir and northern areas are still not accessible due to heavy landslides. Army engineers have started removing the landslides that have blocked the two main access roads to Muzafferabad via Abbottabad and Murree.

11 October 2005. As per the press news the death toll may exceed 100,000, with over 5 million homeless. According to experts assessments from the devastation the death figures have already reached more than 50,000, while dozens of small towns and villages have remained untouched by the relief workers more than 48 hours after the 7.6 magnitude quake wiped away entire villages and buried victims under piles of debris. Rescuers searched frantically for survivors on Monday as the death toll may exceed 100,000 and officials said thousands more could be dead in the rubble. The capital of Azad Kashmir is no more a city of the living. It is almost a graveyard now. Bodies can be seen everywhere, on roads, streets and under the debris of devastated buildings. People have to spend their nights under the open sky and some in their vehicles. There are no tents, no food and no drinking water. Thousands of people are still alive under the debris and fallen building structures. In Islamabad, European, Arab and Japanese nationals were among an estimated 45 people missing two days after the quake destroyed two apartment blocks. The Azad Kashmir capital Muzaffarabad and Bagh town to the south-east appeared to be the worst sufferers from Saturday morning’s quake that also rocked other parts of Pakistan as well as neighbouring India and Afghanistan. The federal government has set up a federal relief commission for coordination of rescue and relief operations in the quake-affected areas of the NWFP and Azad Kashmir. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates each donated $100 million for relief of quake-affected people in Pakistan. The government is trying to get satellite imaging to assess the magnitude of the damage in unreachable areas in northern parts and AJK in order to get the aerial image of devastated areas to ascertain the magnitude of destruction caused by the earthquake especially in unreachable valleys of Neelum and Jhelum. The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) has announced an initial contribution of Rs 30 million in support of the earthquake relief being provided by the government and a further Rs 30 million donation towards the President’s Emergency Relief Fund. AKDN helicopters have been put at the disposal of the authorities to assist in humanitarian efforts. Pakistan on Monday expressed its gratitude for the overwhelming and rapid response it received from the international community to its call for assistance in the relief efforts following the worst-ever earthquake that hit parts of the country on Saturday. More than 2,000 injured people have been evacuated to hospitals in Rawalpindi from the earthquake-hit areas of Azad Kashmir in the past two days. Most of the injured had multiple bone fractures and head injuries and were airlifted from Muzaffarabad, Rawalakot and Bagh, the worst affected districts of Azad Kashmir. A series of aftershocks continued to rock the twin cities of Islamabad-Rawalpindi and adjoining areas of Azad Kashmir and Hazara division on Monday. Mild tremors shook Islamabad and its surroundings, forcing residents to come out of their houses to nearby roads and parks for safety. No government rescue team has so far reached the Bagh district in Azad Jammu and Kashmir to rescue the survivors of Saturday’s earthquake, the survivors themselves were digging mass graves for the burial of earthquake victims. Many bodies had become putrefied and emitting a foul smell. From aeroplane/helicopter the whole towns in northern Pakistan look as if they have been carpet bombed. The military helicopter flew low over the areas worst hit to reveal the full scale of what Pakistan describes as its worst ever disaster.

11 October 2005. Heavy rain and hail forced the cancellation of some relief flights to earthquake-stricken regions of Pakistan today as Officials estimated that the death toll would surpass 35,000. In the latest of a series of remarkable rescues, emergency workers in the northern town of Balakot pulled a teenage boy from the rubble, 78 hours after Saturday’s (7 October) quake. Two survivors, a 55-year-old woman and her 75-year-old mother, also were pulled from the rubble of a ten-story apartment building in Islamabad, 80 hours after they were buried. They did not appear to have suffered serious injuries. A French search team yesterday rescued at least five children buried in a collapsed school in the northern town of Balakot, said Eric Supara, an official at the French Embassy in Islamabad. In Indian controlled Kashmir, rescue workers today found the bodies of 60 road workers in a bus that was buried in a landslide during the quake, the army said. Earlier in the day, US military helicopters, diverted from neighbouring Afghanistan, helped ferry wounded from the wrecked city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-ruled Kashmir. International rescue teams joined the search for finding survivors. Teams of Britons, Germans and Turks used high-tech cameras to scan under piles of concrete, steel and wood. Thousands of civilian volunteers, some carrying picks and shovels on the shoulders, walked north toward quake-hit towns. The worst-hit region was Kashmir. Bad weather compounded the misery in the region, with heavy rain and hail forcing some helicopters loaded with food and medicine to cancel or delay their flights. That official toll in Pakistan remained at around 20,000 people, but a senior army official close to the rescue operations said government officials were estimating that between 35,000 and 40,000 died. Indian army spokesman J.S. Juneja said his country’s death toll had risen to 1,460 with the discovery of the road workers buried in the landslide. The US Agency for International Development reported 33,180 dead in Pakistan, 865 dead in India and four dead in Afghanistan. citing its own, preliminary statistics. The UN World Food Program said the first deliveries of food for 240,000 people will reach victims late today. Simon Pluess, a spokesman for the agency, said the WFP was prepared to feed one million people for a month. UN officials also warned of a possible measles epidemic and the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea, as the water and sanitation system is heavily damaged. “Measles could potentially become a serious problem,” said Fadela Chaib, spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. Measles is endemic in the region and just 60 percent of children, for whom the disease is often deadly, are protected. At least 90 percent coverage is needed to prevent an epidemic, the WHO said. About ten trucks brought by Pakistani charities and volunteers drove into Muzaffarabad, where efforts by relief workers to distribute aid turned chaotic as residents scrambled for handouts of cooking oil, sugar, rice, blankets and tents. It was the first major influx of aid since the monster 7.6-magnitude quake struck, destroying most homes and all government buildings in the city, and leaving its 600,000 people without power or water. Most have spent three cold nights without shelter. Two or three police looked on helplessly as more than 200 people raided a stock of food arranged by relief workers at a soccer field near Muzaffarabad’s centre – one of six designated aid distribution points.

12 October 2005. An earthquake of moderate intensity jolted Sorab and its surrounding areas in the Kalat district, some 220 km south-east of Quetta city, in the Balochistan Province of Pakistan yesterday evening. It was observed for 10 seconds at 2030, local time. “No casualty or major damage was reported,” a senior official of the local administration told local media. According to the Met office the intensity of the earthquake was recorded on the international Richter scale at 5.1. The epicentre could be in the Kerthar range of the Chaman fault line, the most quake prone area of Pakistan. Meanwhile, a large number of people, particularly those living in Karachi’s southern parts, came out of their apartments and homes when a mild quake (4 on Richter Scale) hit the area at 0028, local time, today. The tremors frightened people in the Defence Housing Authority, Clifton and Seaview areas into leaving their homes. People living around the airport in flats also came out in panic.

12 October 2005. Rain and hailstorms hampered rescue and relief work in quake-stricken areas on Tuesday as the government-estimated death toll from Saturday’s disaster in Azad Kashmir and the NWFP mounted to 30,000. The government deployed thousands more army troops to join the relief work that seemed to be gaining momentum, after complaints by the sufferers about absence or slow arrival of help. Two more divisions and several brigades of the Pakistan Army have been moved to Azad Kashmir and Mansehra district to cope with the catastrophe. The number of casualties could go up further as rescue activities come into full swing in the far-flung and so far inaccessible villages of Azad Kashmir. About 2.5 million houses have been destroyed and the number of homeless people is in the region of 13-15 million. Three days after the disaster the people of this once-prosperous little town set deep in the hills of Azad Kashmir have all but given up hope. The United Nations on Tuesday launched a $272 million flash appeal for the earthquake victims. The appeal sought life-saving and early recovery activities for a six-month emergency phase in a remote region which provides enormous logistical difficulties with landslides cutting off many roads, allowing access only by foot or helicopter to areas where more than 80 per cent of buildings have been destroyed. Japan said on Tuesday that it would offer $20 million and was ready to dispatch several transport helicopters and dozens of troops to assist with relief efforts in the disaster zone. More than 600 earthquake victims with multiple injuries were brought to different hospitals in Rawalpindi on Tuesday. The wounded, including women, children, youths and the elderly, were admitted to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH), Military Hospital, Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH), Holy Family Hospital, District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital, FID and Railways Hospital. Most of the injured were brought from Muzaffarabad, Bagh, Rawlakot, Balakot and Mansehra. The residents of the area reported that 90 per cent of the houses in the area had been razed and over 60 percent of the people had lost their lives, mostly the schoolchildren. About 700 students were buried alive in three different schools. The federal government on Tuesday mobilized all electricity related companies of Wapda and National Engineering Services of Pakistan to start damage assessment and restoration of power supply to Azad Kashmir.

13 October 2005. A strong aftershock shook northern Pakistan in the early hours of today, panicking jittery residents still numbed by the weekend’s massive earthquake that claimed at least 23,000 lives. Pakistani seismologists said the quake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale struck at 0124, local time some 200 kilometres east of Peshawar and north of the capital Islamabad. There were no initial reports of any casualties or damage.

13 October 2005. The local press have reported that relief operations in earthquake-hit Azad Kashmir got into full gear yesterday with the help of US and German helicopters, but hundreds of thousands of survivors were still desperate for help facing a fifth night out in the cold. After torrential downpours on Tuesday (11 October), blue skies had cleared the way for more mercy flights to bring badly needed food and medicine, and take away the injured. A five-year-old girl today crawled free from a crumpled building here. An aftershock of moderate intensity was felt in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and other cities at 0124 hours, today. It was also felt in Rawalpindi, Sialkot, Peshawar, Dir, Mansehra, Swat, and Azad Kashmir. Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri has said he will soon be embarking on a tour of Arab countries to generate aid and donations for the West Bank. The Flash Appeal of $272 million issued by the United Nations on Tuesday was only the initial appeal and it would be revised and upgraded as need arises, a UN official said yesterday. People are wondering as to where all the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have vanished after the earthquake disaster that hit the country on 8 October. In different gatherings here in the capital city, people are talking about the missing NGOs which, they say, have been seen very active until a day before the earthquake disaster in holding seminars and workshops in five-star luxury hotels on various issues. There was no good news at the sandwiched multi-storey Margalla Towers building site yesterday. Only dead bodies and limbs were recovered from the mountain of debris, but the British rescuers at work there have not lost hope. Men and gigantic machines of the army engineering Corps, were at work from dawn to dusk, searching and digging through tons of concrete rubble for survivors. One body of an aged man was recovered around noon and then another body of a young woman was recovered late in the evening. Some human limbs were also recovered during the day. The death toll in the devastating earthquake in the NWFP came close to 10,000 amid warning from officials that the figure may rise as roads are being re-opened and more bodies are retrieved from rubbles of buildings. An official of the crisis management centre at the Home Department in Peshawar said the total number of confirmed deaths yesterday was 9,840 while the number of injured people was 15,321. Relief operations in the earthquake-devastated areas got streamlined yesterday after days of frustration as communications improved with the reopening of roads and more helicopters joining the relief effort. The Pakistan Air Force established a forward base at Muzaffarabad airport where its C-130 cargo planes airdropped relief goods for onward delivery to remote villages by land where aid had not reached even five days after the quake struck. ISPR Director-General Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan has said that 20 percent of the areas affected by the 8 October earthquake is still inaccessible and rescue and relief teams have reached 80 per cent of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP. He was briefing media-persons at the Chaklala Air Base where cargo planes carrying foreign relief goods and aid workers have been arriving. The Punjab government has announced Rs100 million for the President’s Fund for the relief of earthquake victims which is in addition to the Rs50 million it has already given to the Azad Kashmir and NWFP governments each. The shifting of relief goods from the city to upcountry for quake-hit victims has become expensive as goods transport operators have enhanced fares due to what they claim is an increased demand and frequent raise in fuel prices. Most of the goods in the country are transported by road instead of government-run trains. The flow of donations from multinational companies, institutions, banks, associations and other organizations for relief and rehabilitation of earthquake victims continued yesterday. Sheikh Nahayan Bin Mabarak Al Nahayan, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Group, has announced a donation of Rs220 million towards the earthquake relief fund. With the government sponsored-relief activities appearing to be still at an initial stage in the earthquake-hit parts of the Frontier province, people rendered homeless are waiting for tents and drinking water more than anything else. Thousands of families rendered displaced because of the devastating tremors are forced to spend their lives in the open in the affected parts of the Mansehra, Battagram, Shangla and Abbottabad districts. Balakot, popular with tourists on their way to the picturesque Kaghan and Naran valleys in Mansehra district, has become a city of the dead after Saturday’s earthquake and its aftershocks. The town presents a scene of total devastation where chaos and confusion reign with decomposing bodies buried under the collapsed structures.

14 October 2005. Local press reports state that the earthquake which struck northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir on Saturday (9 October) was a bigger catastrophe than last year’s tsunami in terms of the number of people made homeless and the extent of destruction to infrastructure, a World Health Organisation official said yesterday. Hussein A. Gezairy, the organization’s regional director, said the quake rendered 2.5 million people homeless as against 1.5 million displaced by the tsunami. Besides, another million people are in extreme grief, needing immediate help. Although relief efforts in the earthquake-stricken areas of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP gained pace, the government said yesterday it would not be possible to provide shelter to all survivors before winter sets in. The government updated death toll to 25,000 from 23,000 cited a day earlier, but said the figure was bound to rise after facts were known about the extent of damage in the Neelum and Jhelum valleys that had not been reached by authorities yet. Tents and tarpaulin have disappeared from the market in the aftermath of the earthquake. Market sources in Peshawar said there was extreme shortage of tents, tarpaulin and other shelter items across the country. Even buyers and relief workers from Rawalpindi and other areas rushed to Peshawar to purchase tents for the survivors of the quake. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said yesterday his government planned to set up tented cities with all essential civic amenities to be followed up by model cities in areas devastated by the earthquake. The prime minister said at a press conference here soon after attending a meeting of the NWFP government to assess the damage caused by the natural calamity and take stock of the relief and rescue operations in the province. The United Nations is convening an emergency donors conference in Geneva next Thursday (20 October) to solicit more funds, citing lack of adequate response to its “flash appeal” from the international community. So far only $5 million have been contributed to the appeal and another $6 million committed, which is not enough said the Chief of Staff to the Undersecretary-General of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Hamsjoerg Strohmeyer. An Indian relief train was due to cross the Wagah-Attari border yesterday night with a consignment of blankets, medicines and tents for the Azad Kashmir earthquake victims, official sources said. The Supreme Court yesterday ordered a halt to the construction activity of a luxury housing scheme near Islamabad and asked the government to consider revising the capital’s construction regulations in the wake of Saturday’s massive earthquake.

15 October 2005. Pakistan’s government has said it now believes more than 38,000 people were killed by the South Asian earthquake a week ago. That is an increase of more than 13,000 on its former estimate. At least 1,400 died in Indian-administered Kashmir. In some of the areas worst affected, heavy rain and strong winds temporarily grounded helicopter flights. Relief agencies expressed concern about the weather’s effects on the homeless with children especially vulnerable. Pakistan military spokesman, Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, said the death toll had been increased after confirmation of more fatalities in remote valleys and the badly-hit town of Balakot. President Pervez Musharraf said today the situation would worsen. “I think it will keep rising when we go into the valleys,” he said. Pakistan has put the number of injured at more than 60,000. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao said the number of homeless had now risen to around 3.3m. He said the quake had cost Pakistan $5bn in infrastructure losses. Exactly one week after the 7.6 magnitude quake struck, 3,000 Muslim worshippers gathered in the country’s largest mosque, in Islamabad, for special prayers. “Oh Allah, give courage to those who survived this disaster to endure this hardship,” the cleric read.

15 October 2005. Pakistan’s northern areas are still receiving severe shocks after the mega earthquake on 8 October. A moderate intensity earthquake was felt in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, and Peshawar, Abbotabad and Mansehra in northern area at 0038 today. According to Met Office, the tremor was of 5.1 on the Richter scale with its epicentre located 200 kilometres north of Peshawar in Hazara division. No loss of life or property was reported. Earlier, a minor jolt of 3.2 magnitudes on Richter scale was felt at 1026 yesterday night. Met office said such after shocks will continue for few more days.

16 October 2005. Air relief operations have been severely limited for Pakistan’s earthquake survivors after heavy rains brought further misery to millions in desperate need of aid, officials and witnesses said. Helicopter and aircraft flights were held up from morning after the downpour. Balakot, which has been reduced to little more than a tent city, was turned into a bog with hundreds of items of donated clothes strewn on the ground. The rain stopped by late morning in northern Pakistan but the weather remained cloudy. A small number of helicopters were heard resuming in Balakot but only two helicopters operated in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir where half of the victims died, an official said. Major Fayaz Ali said one helicopter, from the Aga Khan Foundation charity, dropped relief goods in villages. A German military chopper also managed to take engineers to the ravaged Neelum Valley to unblock a road and brought back injured people. In the capital Islamabad, an air force official said two C-130 transport aircraft with supplies were being sent to Muzaffarabad after the weather cleared. The almost completely cancellation of flights also came after Pakistan lost its first helicopter in the operation, an Mi-17 which crashed, killing six military personnel on Saturday (15 October). Maj Gen Sultan said it was not immediately clear whether the helicopter crashed because of bad weather or some technical fault. Flights were severely disrupted on Saturday by heavy rains and clouded weather. The cloudy skies are expected to clear up by tomorrow, said Arshad Mahmood, an official at the meteorological department in the northwest city of Peshawar. President Pervez Musharraf said that Pakistan remained in dire need of tents and blankets for the more than three million people made homeless by the 8 October earthquake. The earthquake killed 39,422 people and injured 65,038 others, national disaster response chief Major General Farooq Javed said, raising the confirmed death toll by nearly 1,500 people.

17 October 2005. Saturday’s earthquake in northern Pakistan has shocked the nation; 30,000 people have been killed, 43,000 have been injured, almost 2.5 million are in need of shelter and thousands more are still trapped under the rubble. President Gen Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday that he doubted that more survivors could be found from the devastating earthquake, adding the death toll was likely to rise beyond 38,000. There are still rescue operations going on, but they say technically after eight days, the chance of saving anybody is slim. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday said that the biggest challenge the government was facing one week after the devastating earthquake was providing shelter to millions of victims. The number one priority is shelter and tents, tents, tents, he emphasized while briefing journalists on relief efforts at the PM House. He said shelter was a major concern, particularly in the wake of the snowfall received by the northern areas in the past 48 hours. An Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) has been established to rebuild infrastructure in the quake-affected areas. Lt-Gen Muhammad Zubair, engineer-in-chief of Pakistan Army, has been appointed chairman of Erra. Federal Minister for Education Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi has said that Pakistan Army has sufficient number of helicopters but not all of them can be utilized in the ongoing rescue and relief operations in the earthquake stricken areas. Saudi Arabia on Saturday announced a $133 million emergency aid package for rebuilding infrastructural projects in northern areas of Pakistan. King Abdullah gave orders for a grant worth 500 million riyals ($133 million) to rebuild basic infrastructure installations, including schools, buildings, roads and hospitals, in the brother Islamic Republic of Pakistan, said a statement from the royal court. The federal government has approved a grand scheme of raising around 10,000 new houses in areas stricken by devastating earthquake for early rehabilitation of survivors. The project will be completed in active collaboration with the UAE government, which has provided a sum of Rs500 million for this purpose. International and domestic entities have been pledging more assistance for the victims of October 8 victims in cash and kind. The Emirates Airlines joined in the relief efforts and transported more than 110 tonnes of cargo supplies from relief agencies to the affected areas by a special charter flight to Islamabad.

18 October 2005. More than 1 million people may have lost their jobs in Pakistan as a result of the devastating earthquake there, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) says. The ILO says the October 8 disaster has compounded the grinding poverty that was already the daily lot of many people in Pakistani Kashmir and North-West Frontier province. It says prior to the earthquake, each employed person in the region also supported at least two additional dependants, leaving more than 2 million affected by the economic impact of the disaster. The UN labour agency notes that an initial assessment conducted in the wake of the earthquake shows it had destroyed most infrastructure and shops in affected towns in the region. The earthquake has also caused heavy loss of livestock and agricultural implements, which are the mainstay in many rural areas. The ILO says the hardest hit areas are among the poorest in Pakistan, with millions of people living on less than $2 a day even before the disaster. “By losing their employment, even for a short period of time, workers in the affected districts have likely already fallen into extreme poverty,” ILO chief Juan Somavia said. Pakistan says 41,000 people are confirmed dead and another 67,000 injured in the disaster. About 2.5 million are left homeless. India has said more than 1,300 people died in its part of divided Kashmir.

18 October 2005. Aid agencies expressed concern today at the slow international response to appeals for money to help victims of the Pakistan earthquake in which the United Nations says more than 32,000 children may have died. The Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which co-ordinates U.N. relief work, said it had received only 5 percent of the $272 million for which it appealed last week. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies – the world’s largest disaster relief network – said it had only 25 percent of the 73 million Swiss francs ($56.72 million) sought. “We are worried that this trend will not allow us to fully support the Pakistan Red Crescent’s ongoing relief operation to initially assist tens of thousands of families over the next four months,” said Susan Johnson, director of operations at the Geneva-based Federation. The Federation usually receives pledges from donors for “more funds more quickly” for disasters of this magnitude, it said in a statement. The quake ten days ago killed at least 41,000 people in Pakistan and injured more than 60,000. However, the UN Children’s Fund, which was estimating 50-60 percent of the dead were children, said it feared more than 32,000 young people had died. Another 42,000 were injured. “People are coming down from the mountains saying villages and schools have been wiped out. It is more than 60 percent,” said UNICEF spokesman Damien Personaz, although UNICEF had no overall death toll. “And this figure is going to rise. It is clear that children were the main victims.” Besides the $15 million received in cash, OCHA spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs said the UN had some $45 million in pledges. “We need this money as soon as possible in cash,” she said. The lack of money had not yet hurt the relief effort because international agencies were drawing on reserves to finance their operations, she added. Byrs said the UN appeal was only part of the international response and that some $165 million had been raised elsewhere, including through direct bilateral donations from other states. Aid-in-kind – donations of food, material and medicines – were also not included in the UN figures, she added. The top priority was tents for the hundreds of thousands of people left without shelter as winter approaches in the mountainous region of northern Pakistan where the quake struck on Oct 8, Byrs said. Thousands of survivors were still living in the open in cold night temperatures, “some with open or gangrened injuries and with little access to clean water”, the Federation said. Jan Egeland, U.N. Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, will chair a ministerial meeting in Geneva on 26 October to review relief aid to survivors in all stricken South Asian communities, OCHA said. The International Committee of the Red Cross increased its appeal ten-fold to 62 million Swiss francs ($47.66 million), to help 150,000 victims survive the winter, a statement said. “This is a race against time,” warned Antonella Notari, ICRC spokeswoman, noting that winter weather would soon make it impossible even for helicopters to reach some mountain valleys.

19 October 2005. Strong aftershocks rocked earthquake shattered northern Pakistan this morning, but there were no immediate reports of more deaths or injuries. A 5.8 magnitude quake at 0733 hours, the strongest of dozens of aftershocks since an 8 October earthquake devastated Pakistani Kashmir and adjoining North West Frontier Province, caused landslides and sent people into the streets. A second aftershock nearly as strong at 5.6 magnitude followed at 0816 hours. The tremors were also felt across the frontier in Indian Kashmir. Landslides are what army engineers fear most, especially in Pakistani Kashmir’s Neelum and Jhelum valleys where countless people remain cut off from help because roads were destroyed in one of the worst natural disasters Pakistan has suffered. Officers in charge of efforts to cut through the landslides say it will take weeks to reach the upper Neelum valley, in desperate need of aid in large quantities which helicopters cannot deliver. The new landslides could delay this further. Earthquake survivors in Pakistan were hopeful today that the old enemy, India, would let their kinfolk cross a ceasefire line to help them after President Pervez Musharraf made a surprise offer to allow free relief movement across the border for Kashmiris. India agreed promptly, but there was no immediate word on when the two sides would sit down to work how it could be implemented. “We will allow every Kashmiri to come across the Line of Control and assist in the reconstruction effort,” Musharraf said as Pakistan’s toll rose to 42,000 from a quake which left more than a million homeless and 67,000 injured. India itself also suffered in the quake, with at least 1,300 confirmed dead on the Indian side of the border. But roads are badly damaged and so is a bridge at the solitary border crossing, so it was not immediately clear how long it would take to set up any movement across the frontier. Since the earthquake, both governments have been criticised for letting ingrained distrust get in the way of opening up new routes to get relief supplies to beleaguered communities cut off in the Neelum and Jhelum valleys near the Line of Control. Pakistan, while accepting other aid from India, refuses to let Indian troops join in the rescue work on Pakistani soil, even though its own soldiers struggle to clear the way into the valleys and areas too narrow for helicopters to fly into safely. Pakistan still needs more helicopters to drop supplies and bring out casualties, but it asked India for helicopters without crews, as it meant flying over a region at the centre of two of three wars India and Pakistan have fought. New Delhi refused to accept the precondition. “We have accepted all assistance except military men coming across and one should not grudge that,” Musharraf said. “Other than that we have accepted everything. They want to give us financial aid, they want to give us medicines, they want to give us relief goods,” he said. “Already we have accepted,” he added. Major-General Farooq Ahmed Khan, federal relief commissioner and Musharraf’s point man in the crisis, said that aside from the need for winter-proof tents, Pakistan desperately needed at least 100,000 anti-tetanus shots. Thousands of survivors were still living in the open in cold night temperatures, “some with open or gangrenous injuries and with little access to clean water”, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

19 October 2005. Pakistan today raised its confirmed death toll in the 8 October earthquake by around 6,000 to nearly 48,000. Major-General Farooq Ahmed Khan, the federal relief commissioner who is in overall charge of the relief effort, said 47,723 people were known to have died in Pakistan. Another 1,300 were killed in Indian Kashmir.

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