Aftermath

Return of quake survivors from tent villages begins

The Earthquake-affected people have started returning to their native areas from tent villages run by government and non-governmental organisations in different parts of the five affected districts of the NWFP.

Reports reaching from the quake-affected areas say people in camps at various localities were seen packing their belongings and heading towards their native villages in line with the NWFP government’s decision of closing all camps by March 31. The repatriation would be completed in three phases.

Over a hundred families, according to reports, left for their villages located on the hilltops on the first day of starting the process from a government camp in main Battagram.


Mobile banks to function in quake-hit areas

The ministry of finance and commercial banks have agreed that mobile bank teams will operate in the designated earthquake affected areas so that affectees are ensured speedy disbursement of money, with which they can start reconstruction efforts.

No fee or charge would be realized from affectees for opening and operating accounts. The condition of maintaining minimum balance will also not apply to the accounts of earthquake affectees in AJK and the NWFP.


Monsoon a new threat to quake survivors

The approaching monsoon season poses new dangers of flooding for Hattian Bala village, officials said on Thursday.

The huge pile of earth and boul ders has blocked two streams, forming dams that could collapse in a rainy season. The government has determined that the dam collapse would inundate Hattian Bala and destroy a nearby bridge, Lt Col Zulfiqar Ali Janjua, an army engineer, said.


Kingsley to appear in Pakistan earthquake documentary

Ben Kingsley to work in earthquake documentary

Ben Kingsley will be featured in a documentary about the devastation caused by last year’s earthquake in Pakistan that flattened entire villages in the country’s portion of Kashmir and surrounding areas.

The documentary by director Chip Duncan is being made in partnership with Relief International, a Los Angeles-based aid organization. Pakistan’s government also supported the project.

Kingsley, who spent five days in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir, told reporters in Islamabad on Wednesday that he would like to eliminate the phrase, “We must respect our differences,” from the “lazy vocabulary of political rhetoric.”


Earthquake survivor Siamese twins died

earthquake survivor siamese twins died

Conjoined female twins born to a 9 October earthquake survivor from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, died on Sunday, doctors say.

The twins were joined from chest to abdomen at the rib cage and shared a heart and liver.

Their mother, Shazia, gave birth to triplets on Saturday. A boy, born with the twins, is reported to be well.

Shazia and her husband had walked for hours from their quake-hit village to a hospital in Neelum valley on Friday.

The couple were then flown in an army helicopter to a hospital in the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, where the triplets were born on Saturday morning.


Photos from Quake Zone

Poster in Balakot: How to stop lung diseases

poster in Balakot: how to stop lung diseases


Still smiling

still smiling

Source: Karachi Photo Blog


Earthquake Photo Exhibition by Concern Worldwide

Concern Worldwide is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries

Last year, Concern Worldwide commissioned award-winning Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam to travel to Pakistan to visually capture the struggle faced by local people after the disaster. His pictures depict the sheer enormity of the catastrophe, and the amazing dignity and determination of people as they try to regain some semblance of normality.

Shahidul visited the provinces that bore the brunt of the destruction and loss of life, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and North West Frontier Province (NWFP).


Urgent action urged on Pakistan landslide threat

Landslides present a substantial threat to survivors of last October’s catastrophic earthquake in Pakistan and urgent action is needed ahead of summer rains to prevent large-scale loss of life, experts say.

Professor David Petley of the International Landslide Center at Britain’s University of Durham and Dr Mark Bulmer of the Landslide Observatory at the University of Maryland in the United States visited the quake zone in northern Pakistan in January.

In a joint report made available on Monday, they said that while the response of Pakistani and international relief agencies to the October 8 quake had been remarkable, landslides posed a “substantial threat” to survivors.