Foundation layed for New Balakot
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf presided on Monday over a ceremony to mark the beginning of construction of a new town to replace one almost completely destroyed in a 2005 earthquake.
The northern town of Balakot suffered the most severe damage in the Oct. 8, 2005, earthquake that killed 73,000 people in Pakistan. Rather then rebuilding it on two fault lines, authorities are moving the town to a site 22 km (15 miles) away.
“Balakot has been totally destroyed and devastated. Now an excellent and properly designed town will be built in place of Balakot,” Musharraf said in a speech at the site of New Balakot.
2,000 Muzaffarabad buildings to be razed
The Muzaffarabad Municipal Corporation has initiated a project to demolish around 2,000 precarious private buildings in the quake-hit city.
“From today, we have kick-started the project, which, in fact lays, the basis of reconstruction in this town,” said the corporation’s Administrator Arshad Mahmood Abbasi at a news conference here on Saturday.
The project has two components: demolition of dangerous buildings and removal of their debris at a cost of Rs 210 million and augmentation of the civic body’s capacity through purchase of equipment and recruitment of around 35 staff.
Mr Abbasi said teams would get a form signed from the owners of the buildings to begin demolition in their presence.
Technorati Tags: MuzaffarabadQuake-hit people desperate for shelters, medicines
Survivors of the Oct 2005 earthquake in Balakot are facing extreme hardships due to the freezing temperature in the area. They are living through the hardest days and looking for a miracle to end their miseries, said journalist Shahjehan Khan, who still lives in a damaged tent in the town.
The number of patients has increased due to the inclement weather conditions.
There is one hospital in the town constructed by the Paktel company, but the patients remain unattended due to the absence of doctors and paramedical staff.
Technorati Tags: earthquake, Balakot, PaktelSpecial packages for doctors in quake areas
The NWFP government has made a plan to rehabilitate health infrastructure in the quake-hit districts and to offer special salary packages to health professionals posted there.
Speaking at a workshop on ‘District health planning and advocacy,’ at the Khyber Medical College (KMC) on Wednesday, Health Secretary Abdul Samad Khan said that the provincial government had decided to offer a monthly salary of Rs 80,000 to the doctors serving in the affected areas.
He said the government had initially sanctioned a Rs 90 million grant to purchase medicines.
Technorati Tags: NWFP, KMCBelgium considering swap of 60m euro debt with quake aid
Belgium is considering allowing Pakistan to swap its 60 million euro debt to the European country with aid for reconstruction work in the earthquake-affected areas, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht told reporters on Wednesday.
“My country will consider seriously to write off the loan of 60 million euros,” Mr De Gucht said after talks with his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Kasuri.
Technorati Tags: Belgium, PakistanPrince Charles and Camilla Parker visits earthquake affected areas
Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife Camilla met survivors of last year’s devastating earthquake during a visit to the mountains of Azad Kashmir on Wednesday.
The couple, on their first trip to Pakistan amid tight security, toured reconstruction projects in Pattika, a small town in the Neelam Valley near the epicentre of the October 2005 quake that killed some 74,000 people.
“Our sympathies are with you,” reporters overheard Charles telling one of the residents they met on their three-hour trip. Most of the projects in the town are UK-funded.
Technorati Tags: Britain, Prince Charles, Kashmir, Pakistan, Pattika, NeelamU.S. to train 30,000 teachers in Pakistani quake areas
The United States will train 30,000 teachers and build 50 schools in quake affected areas of Pakistan, the U.S ambassador said on Sunday, the first anniversary of an earthquake that killed 73,000 people.
Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker made the announcement during the inauguration by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz of the first school built by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Dadar village in North West Frontier Province.
“The school buildings are the hardware and they have to have the software to go with it and that means the teachers,” Crocker said while announcing plans to build 50 schools and train 30,000 teachers in Frontier province and Pakistani Kashmir.
Technorati Tags: United States, USAID, KashmirQuake survivors stage anti-graft protest
Hundreds of survivors of last year’s earthquake in Pakistan staged an anti-graft protest in the capital on Saturday, accusing reconstruction officials of corruption.
Waving placards reading “Stop taking bribes”, “Spend the winter with us” and “Build our homes before snowfall”, the demonstrators marched from parliament to the office of the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (Erra).
The protest came a day before the first anniversary of the earthquake. “For the past four and a half months, I have received not a single penny,” said Gohar Rehman, a father of five who had come from Muzaffarabad.
Technorati Tags: Pakistan, Earthquake, Erra, MuzaffarabadUN seeking $45m for winter operations
The United Nations is seeking $45 million for winter operations, including helicopters to help out the affected of the last year’s earthquake in Pakistan.
So far, about two-thirds of that sum has been made available, said a UN press release issued on Saturday, a day ahead of the anniversary of the devastating earthquake that shook the northern parts of the country in 2005.
There is also concern about access to people living in remote locations above 5,000 feet and along the lower valleys. United Nations air operations will be re-established in November for four critical winter months, which will allow some access to areas of concern, especially the Allai, Kaghan, Leepa and Neelum valleys. “As winter approaches, work continues to ensure the survival of those affected by last year’s massive earthquake,î a UN spokesman said.
Technorati Tags: United Nations, Pakistan, Allai, Kaghan, Leepa, NeelumOne Year Later, Earthquake Survivors Still Lack Proper Shelter
A year after last October’s massive South Asian earthquake, aid agencies are warning that nearly two-million people are facing a second Himalayan winter without proper shelter. VOA’s Benjamin Sand revisits one of the communities hit hardest by the October 8, 2005 quake and files this report on the disaster’s devastating legacy.
A song tells of the life and death of one of the quake’s victims.
“When I died,” the girl sings, “my body was broken and spread throughout the land. My family could not find me and I left without being buried.”
Technorati Tags: earthquake, VOA