Chauvinist
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In the Bandi Mir Samdani neighbourhood of Muzaffarabad, which skirts the Neelum Valley road and marks the end of the town’s municipal limits, it is hard to stop staring at the mountain in the backdrop.
The mountain appears to have been shorn off; its inner light-grey core is visible. It is hard to imagine the force that caused this.
Asad Kiyani lives in Kiyani Mohalla of Bandi Mir Samdani, across this mountain, which acquired its current shape due to the devastating earthquake ten years ago, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale.
“Whenever I look at the mountain, I am reminded of that harrowing day,” he says, remembering October 8, 2005 when much of northern Pakistan experienced an earthquake that turned towns and villages in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) into graveyards. Thousands were buried under the rubble.
‘I still remember the children and their teacher screaming for help but we could not remove those concrete slabs’
It struck around 8:52 am, hitting the northern districts of AJK and the adjoining areas of KP. In AJK, Muzaffarabad was the hardest hit, mainly because the epicentre of earthquake was just 19 kilometres (12 miles) to its northeast.
“The destruction caused - we had not imagined it in our wildest dreams,” Kiyani adds.
Experts say AJK lies on land beneath which the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates collide. The geological activity born out of this collision is the reason for the unstable seismic activity in the region.
October 8 too was a result of this activity. More than 70 per cent of all casualties were estimated to have occurred in Muzaffarabad, while Bagh, the second-most-affected district, accounted for 15 per cent of the total casualties.
Asad Kiyani, then 27 years old, was sleeping after having sehri inside his home in Kiyani Mohalla. But for some reason – he cannot remember it ten years later – he came out after eight in the morning and slept on a charpoy in his lawn.
“I was dozing when suddenly the earth beneath my charpoy started shaking; there was an ear-splitting sound, amid unrelenting jolts, and I was eventually tossed on to the floor, while the house caved in,” he says.
“When I managed to rise to my feet, everything was engulfed by clouds of dust, emanating from the mountain across the river as (a huge portion of) it had also caved in,” he adds.
According to Kiyani and many others interviewed in that neighbourhood, the clouds of dirt completely marred visibility and people were unable to see anything in front of them, let alone at a distance, for quite some time.
When the dust settled, the survivors rushed to look for their dear ones buried beneath the fallen buildings.
All the 26 houses in Kiyani Mohalla were reduced to rubble, leaving almost all the residents either dead or wounded.
Asad Kiyani’s infant nephew was killed while the adults inside the house were injured.
But next-doors, the fatalities were much higher, particularly in a government and a private educational institution, located around 100 and 200 metres away from Kiyani Mohalla, respectively.
Saghir Kiyani, now 46, was in Mirpur that morning, visiting his father.
He had taken his spouse and an infant daughter with him, but his school-going daughter and son, aged 11 and 9 years, were in Muzaffarabad, in a private school called Islamic Public School.
“When we learnt that Muzaffarabad had been hit by a devastating earthquake, we desperately tried to call home. Finally, through an acquaintance in the police (who got information on the wireless) we found out that our entire mohalla had been razed to the ground,” he recalls.
“We reached Muzaffarabad early next morning.”
They saw only death and destruction everywhere.
“Most of the children, including mine, were trapped under the rubble. Everyone was frantically trying to rescue them but we didn’t have the tools.”
The helplessness that gripped those whose relatives were trapped under the rubble has left wounds, which refuse to heal.
“I still remember the children and their teacher screaming for help but we could not remove those concrete slabs. They died as we watched,” he recalls.
By the evening of October 9, Saghir and others had retrieved as many as 80 bodies, including those of his two children and five nephews.
“We ran out of shrouds and burial space – we used the planks of school desks to cover the bodies,” says Saghir as his voice chokes.
His wife, Musarrat, breaks down.
“I shouted the names of my children, but there were no reply. I heard other children whimper; mine must have also moaned like that,” recalls the 38-year-old, as she weeps.
Ten years later, she suffers from anxiety, insomnia and hypertension.
Survivors have not been able to get over the tragedy either. Saghir says that in the past two years, his two brothers-in-law got married but there were no traditional ceremonies or celebrations.
Dr Khawaja Hamid Rashid, consultant psychiatrist at the Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences Muzaffarabad, says that the devastating earthquake left multiple psycho-social effects on the survivors.
“A large number of survivors are still suffering from post traumatic stress disorder complicated by other psychiatric and psychosocial symptoms,” he says.
“While it was hard for families to come to terms with the death of loved ones, others had difficulties coping with injuries or loss of employment opportunities,” adds the doctor.
Mir Mohammad Rizwan is the owner of Rizwan Public School in the main city, located partially on a slope that goes down to the left bank of River Neelum.
When the quake struck, part of his school’s building collapsed instantly, trapping around 350 students and 22 teachers and other staff members, including his spouse Fauzia.
“A small slab fell on her, killing her instantly. Among the other 51 dead were three teachers, a driver, and 47 students, including one of my four sons.”
Rizwan says the community still has not learnt from the earthquake.
“We should have prepared ourselves to meet any such eventuality in the future, but alas,” he laments.
Nafeesa Munir, then-20 years old, was teaching in a private school in Jalalabad, an upscale area of Muzaffarabad, which houses the official residences of the president and the prime minister.
In her family, there were eight deaths.
Ten years on, “Whenever I recall those moments, I feel as if everything just happened yesterday,” she says.
“Sleep continues to elude me and I feel an anxiousness that words cannot explain. Allah aisa waqt dushman ko na dikhaye.”
Khadijah Umer Khayam, a practicing clinical psychologist from Bagh, was a first year college student when the deadly quake hit.
After the first two jolts, the building of her college caved in, trapping her and 120 students.
She was rescued after more than two hours, with a fracture in her foot. Nonetheless, she took part in rescue efforts.
“I chose this profession because I was traumatised myself, as were members of my immediate and extended families. I wanted to learn how to bring such people back to a normal life,” she says.
Khadijah believes that negative attitudes have multiplied among the survivors.
“Natural disasters can render people numb for the rest of their lives. In some cases, victims of severe trauma experience not just fear, sadness, anger or even guilt, they even become less sensitive to the pain and agony of others,” she observes.
Back in Muzaffarabad, ageing grocer Fazal Hussain corroborates her opinion.
“On October 8, 2005 we all had a close call. And therefore empathy, brotherhood and affection should have increased,” he maintains.
“But instead people have become more greedy and self-centred.”
The unending saga of reconstruction
Abid Bashir is an 8th grade student in a state-run boys’ high school in Batangi village, some 58 kilometres south of Muzaffarabad in district Hattian Bala. Since he can remember, he has been studying under the open sky. He is not alone; some 450 other students learn with him.
When the harshness of the weather becomes intolerable, they take shelter beneath tattered tents, which make up their “school building”.
“It is difficult to concentrate on studies in this environment, particularly when the weather is extremely hot or cold,” he says, as fellow students nod in agreement.
However, this is not the lot of the 450 plus Batangi students alone. In Muzaffarabad, the state capital, many schools function in similar conditions.
“For the past several years, we have been waiting for the completion of our school building,” laments Saiqa Shafiq, a 9th grade student in the Government Girls Higher Secondary School Gojra.
“Now that it’s the tenth anniversary of the earthquake, the media will be here again to report on our plight for a few moments. Later, we will be forgotten again,” she fumes.
According to Mohammad Zaffar Khan, secretary State Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (Serra), at least 150,000 students in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) are compelled to study under the open sky, due to missing or incomplete buildings.
Rebuilding schools
Schoolchildren were a major casualty of the 2005 earthquake, as it levelled, partly or completely, as many as 2,792 educational institutions in AJK.
Of those flattened institutions, donors pledged to rebuild 402 — 309 were to be rebuilt by the Asian Development Bank-funded Earthquake Emergency Assistance Project (EEAP); 201 by the World Bank-funded Earthquake Additional Financing Project (EAFP); 35 (mostly colleges) by the Saudi Fund Development and Kuwait Fund (SFD&KF) and the remaining, 1,845, by government of Pakistan (GoP) funding.
The GoP-funding is the term used for the money Islamabad received from the international community as donation/soft loan to exclusively spend in the quake hit areas of AJK and neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
This money was to be channeled through the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra).
However, ten years down the line, only 1,277 educational institutions buildings have been completed in AJK. Of the rest, 833 are still under-construction and 682 are yet to be initiated.
Officials say the 806 under-construction and 653 yet-to-be initiated projects fall under GoP-funding. Only 29 of yet-to-be initiated projects in the education sector are to be built by donors, directly. Unfortunately, under-construction projects are also progressing at a snail’s pace. The reason, according to the government, is an unsteady cash flow.
“A severe financial crunch has virtually paralysed the reconstruction programme since April 2010,” admits Serra Secretary Zaffar Khan.
In 2011-12, the requirement for the ongoing and new projects in AJK was estimated at Rs 32.328 billion, but only Rs 5.38 billion was provided.
Next year, AJK got Rs 3.564 billion against its demand of Rs 16.02 billion. In 2013-14 it got Rs 1.512 billion against Rs 14 billion and in 2014-15 it was given Rs 714 million against Rs 10.75 billion.
In the current fiscal year, the minimum requirement was estimated at Rs 6.95 billion, but so far only Rs 182 million have been released to AJK.
The projects in sectors other than education numbered 4,938, of which 3,928 have been completed and handed over to the concerned departments. Of the remaining projects, 778 are said to be under-construction while 232 are yet to be initiated, most of them in the livelihoods sector.
In 2011, the Pakistan Peoples Party formed its government in AJK, three years after assuming power in Pakistan. Reconstruction related officials here heaved a sigh of relief, assuming that the new government will ensure reconstruction funds.
However, the expectations were soon shattered. “In fact the PPP government squeezed the funds further,” complains an official, on the condition of anonymity.
“If we demanded Rs 100, we were given Rs 10. How could the targets be achieved?” There have long been allegations that the reconstruction programme in AJK ran into snags because the Peoples Party led central government diverted Rs 56 billion meant for the purpose to other heads.
In March 2012, PML-N AJK chapter president Raja Farooq Haider publicly levelled this allegation against the PPP government.
The financial constraints did not ease with the change of government in Islamabad.
In November last year, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced Rs 4 billion for the completion of the under-construction projects, particularly in the education sector.
Following the announcement, Serra selected 500 under-construction schools for quick completion. Contractors were persuaded to resume work.
However, so far, no funds have been released and the trust deficit has worsened. “Now the contractors are not ready to believe us,” one official says.
But the woes of Serra are not the entire story.
Erra runs into financial troubles
The AJK Urban Development Programme (UDP) runs in addition to the projects executed by Serra. The former is a vertical programme being directly executed by Erra and the federal government in Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Rawalakot.
This programme was launched in 2009; it was funded by $300m provided by China’s AXIM Bank and $53m by the government of Pakistan.
This sum was to be spent in the Muzaffarabad City Development Programme ($190.62m), the Bagh City Development Programme ($123.55m) and the Rawalakot City Development Programme ($38.83m).
Of the 104 projects, envisaged under MCDP, BCDP and RCDP (53 under BCDP and 18 under RCDP), 46 (25, 13 and 8 respectively) have been completed. In Bagh and Rawalakot, work on 39 and 18 is in progress. In Muzaffarabad, work on 27 projects is under progress, including the president’s and prime minister’s houses.
However, many projects – 110 according to a Serra document - are yet to be initiated.
“So far $140m have been spent under the MCDP… We have given preference to important projects,” says MCDP project director Brig (retired) Riaz Noor. He admits that the UDP has been facing delays due to a delay in the release of the funding committed by the federal government. The truth is that even the ones initiated are progressing slowly.
For example, under the MCDP, 275-acres were acquired some 10 or so kilometres south of Muzaffarabad, for establishing two satellite towns, for earthquake survivors.
Ten years on, these towns are still not ready for allotment. Development work is likely to consume another six months, according to Asad Habib Awan, chairman Development Authority Muzaffarabad (DAM), who nevertheless claims that his institution will start the allotment process soon.
Zahid Amin, a leading civil society activist, has been protesting the delay of projects under the MCDP. “It is unfair to deprive Muzaffarabad of the projects that were promised to its people,” he says.
Mr Noor says, however, that some “not-so-pressing” projects have been delayed for multiple reasons, mainly the high cost of land acquisition.
After the earthquake, it was decided that AJK would be given Rs 4.18 billion for acquisition of land for various projects under the UDP. However, it got only Rs 2 billion. Mr Amin also points out that the Chinese loan expires in December 2015, after which no one will bother with the unfinished projects.
But Mr Noor shrugs off these fears, in the hope that the loan’s term will be extended to December 2016.
Grievances notwithstanding, many believe that the rebuilt infrastructure, particularly the buildings, is impressive. “In all constructions in public sector, building codes and guidelines have been strictly followed,” says Zaffar Khan.
In private sector too, building codes have mostly been followed in new constructions, particularly in cases where government grants were involved.
But with time, as complacency set in, newer construction has been carried out without adhering to rules. And the civic bodies have turned a blind eye.
Mr Amin, who has headed both Muzaffarabad Municipal Corporation and DAM, points out that none of the civic bodies has a structural engineer to take care of this foremost task. “A city that sits on fault lines cannot afford to turn a blind eye to violations of the building codes,” he maintains.
Serra officials also acknowledge that there have been complaints of non-compliance to seismic resistance standards. Worse still are the rural areas where there are no checks and balances. Asad Habib Awan, Chairman DAM, asserts that whenever they come to know about any unlawful construction, they take requisite action, swiftly.
