Pakistan Earthquake 2005

Earthquake victims in Lahore leave for AJK and NWFP

Earthquake victims living in Lahore on the Punjab government’s invitation left for their native areas on Monday.

Saba Sadiq, adviser to the Punjab chief minister on social welfare, saw the 85 families off on the chief minister’s behalf at the Social Welfare Complex.

She also addressed the farewell ceremony, saying the Punjab had again played a role in helping people and had hosted the victims for four months. She said each family was also given three months of rations including flour, rice, oil, sugar, tea, milk powder, grains, pulses and spices. She also said every victim was given Rs 1,000.

Design for a Winterized Home.

These are modular in constructions, made up of blocks of interlocking
modules, as shown in the attached figures. These blocks can be
fabricated by plastic molding machines; each block is a 2×1x0.2 feet
plastic molded container, the air in the container acts as an insulator
making them ideal for constructing winterized home. They snap on next to each other and can be placed in the form of a wall, making them ideal for a quick building project.

Submitted by:

Ashfaq A. Khan
akhan@aklinux.com
225-769-3259

Karachi: on top of EarthQuake Fault Lines

“While Karachi lies close to a major fault line, it is situated on or close to four minor faults. The first is called the Allah Bund fault and it passes through the coastal town of Shah Bundar, the area around Pakistan Steel Mills and runs through eastern parts of the city ending near Cape Monz. Another fault lies in the Rann of Kutch near Sindh’s southeastern border with India. The third is called the Pubb fault which lies near the Mekran coast west of the city while a fourth is located in Dadu district on the northern boundary of Karachi.”

Earthquake Crevasse in Kashmir Swallows Public Library

The only public library in the area of Kashmir administered by Pakistan was completely destroyed in the magnitude-7.6 earthquake that devastated the mountainous region October 8. The Khurshid National Library in Muzaffarabad, near the epicenter of the quake, apparently fell into one of two huge crevasses that opened up suddenly within the city.

Nuzhat Rahman, head of acquisitions for the Library of Congress field office in Islamabad, told American Libraries, “I contacted Jasmine Manzoor of Pakistan Television, who had gone to Muzaffarabad last week, and in her live reporting from there I had seen the debris of the Khurshid National Library. She confirmed that the library has caved in deep in the ground and only a small, demolished part is visible.”

Rawalakot: city of the homeless

Saturday’s devastating earthquake has hit the residents of Azad Kashmir in many ways. Unlike Muzzafarabad and Bagh districts, the disaster has stolen shelter virtually from every single inhabitant of Rawalakot city.

Named by a British traveller in the late 19th century as the Pearly Valley, Rawalakot city does not seem to wear the look of a devastated place at the outset. However, the destruction is not as dramatic and obvious as it is in Muzaffarabad district or elsewhere in northern Pakistan. But a visit to the city centre and the residential areas testifies that the tremors were as deadly as they could be, regardless of the fact that the impact came in a different shape.

One thousand hospitals in Pakistan destroyed in quake: UN

About one thousand hospitals were “completely destroyed” in the earthquake in Pakistan, severely hampering urgent medical treatment for thousands of injured people, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The estimate was contained in a UN situation report on the international aid operation following the quake that devastated areas north of the capital Islamabad on Saturday, as well as parts
of northern India and Afghanistan.

“That’s just Pakistan. It’s an estimate made by our coordination office from information collected on the ground,” Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN’s humanitarian coordination office (OCHA), told.

Quetta: Kallat jolts with minor quake

Some low intensity earthquake jolts were observed in Kallat district of Quetta today.

According to Met office, Quetta, the jolts were experienced in Sorab area of Kallat district, however no casualties have been reported yet.

Source: The News

Muzaffarabad is a ghost town from dark ages

Azad Kashmir’s sprawling capital city is a ghost town, a 21st century reminder to the World War II blitzkrieg. The city is now set for an epidemic, no less.

With entire suburban population heading to the town in hope of relief, more danger of disease is at hand with some 20,000 bodies decaying underneath the rubble and over countless injured living in the worst unhygienic conditions.

As if this was not enough, the migrant inhabitants and the worried relatives are rushing back after the opening of the roads to the place once called Muzaffarabad with the hopes to see their loved ones and settle in their abandoned homes with “the situation improving over the past three days”.

Looting Breaks Out in Wake of Deadly Quake

Shopkeepers clashed with looters Monday, and hungry families huddled under tents while waiting for relief supplies after Pakistan’s worst earthquake razed entire villages and buried roads in rubble.

Eight U.S. military helicopters from Afghanistan arrived in Islamabad with provisions, and Washington pledged up to $50 million in relief and reconstruction aid, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said.

“The magnitude of this disaster is utterly overwhelming,” Crocker said. “We have under way the beginning of a very major relief effort.”

The United Nations said more than 2.5 million people were left homeless by Saturday’s 7.6-magnitude quake, and doctors warned of an outbreak of disease unless more relief arrives soon.

‘Whole generation’ lost in quake

A road has been re-opened into Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir where 11,000 are thought to have died, allowing trucks to deliver food and medical supplies.

The BBC’s Aamer Ahmed Khan in Muzaffarabad says two international rescue teams pulled out a 12-year-old boy alive on Monday morning, two days after he was buried by rubble.

But people are becoming more and more desperate in the city, he says, with supply trucks mobbed and reports of looting at damaged shops and homes.

The rescue effort has been slowed by landslides which have wiped out roads and bridges, and a lack of helicopters to ferry in vital heavy lifting equipment.