Pakistan still faces massive post-quake challenge
-08/06/06
A host of daunting challeng
Pakistan still faces massive post-quake challenge
-08/06/06
A host of daunting challenges still face Pakistan as it tries to recover from a devastating earthquake last October, writes Chris Herlinger, a New York-based correspondent for Ecumenical News International who was recently on assignment in Pakistan for the US humanitarian organization Church World Service, a member of the Action of Churches Together International network.
As international attention focusses on Indonesia, the post-quake situation in Pakistan is demanding massive resources – from a nation that is also coping with seemingly perennial problems of poverty, corruption and political instability.
The earthquake killed about 80 000 people, and displaced another 3.3 million, permanently altering the landscape of the North West Frontier Province and the Pakistani-controlled Azad Kashmir region.
Almost eight months since the earthquake struck, humanitarian aid workers, government officials and disaster survivors say the coming months will present new challenges to the predominately Islamic nation.
Chief among them is the rainy season, which may require the Pakistani government to evacuate residents who are now returning to villages that were levelled in the catastrophe.
There is also deep uncertainty among returnees about whether the areas they are returning to are safe and whether they have left temporary camps too quickly. Some observers have also alleged that the government has forcibly removed people from the camps.
But in a recent interview, a representative of the Pakistan’s Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) said that was not the case and he hailed the response both by the government and by relief groups.
“It was tremendous work,” ERRA representative Rab Nawaz told a group of US and European aid workers and church officials. Nawaz also defended the pace of reconstruction efforts, which some have criticised as proceeding too slowly. “This needs time,” he said.
A group of villagers from the small community of Naran, who had relocated to a camp near Balakot City, itself was heavily destroyed in the quake, said they remained uncertain when they could return to their village, some 86 kilometres away.
The villagers were also unsure how they would regain their livelihoods, as their cattle, a crucial means of support, had all been lost in the earthquake. Even so, they said the authorities had done a good job in their initial response to the disaster.
Still, the International Crisis Group (ICG), which monitors international crises, was highly critical of the Pakistani government in a recent report, calling the disaster response “ill-planned” and “poorly executed”.
Among other things, it faulted authorities for tolerating radical Islamic groups, banned under the national Anti-Terrorism Law, and allowing them to respond to the emergency.
Said the International Crisis Group: “Should jihadi groups that have been active in relief work remain as involved in reconstruction, threats to domestic and regional security will increase.”
The Action of Churches Together aid network is an associate of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC).
[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches]
Pakistan still faces massive post-quake challenge
-08/06/06
A host of daunting challenges still face Pakistan as it tries to recover from a devastating earthquake last October, writes Chris Herlinger, a New York-based correspondent for Ecumenical News International who was recently on assignment in Pakistan for the US humanitarian organization Church World Service, a member of the Action of Churches Together International network.
As international attention focusses on Indonesia, the post-quake situation in Pakistan is demanding massive resources – from a nation that is also coping with seemingly perennial problems of poverty, corruption and political instability.
The earthquake killed about 80 000 people, and displaced another 3.3 million, permanently altering the landscape of the North West Frontier Province and the Pakistani-controlled Azad Kashmir region.
Almost eight months since the earthquake struck, humanitarian aid workers, government officials and disaster survivors say the coming months will present new challenges to the predominately Islamic nation.
Chief among them is the rainy season, which may require the Pakistani government to evacuate residents who are now returning to villages that were levelled in the catastrophe.
There is also deep uncertainty among returnees about whether the areas they are returning to are safe and whether they have left temporary camps too quickly. Some observers have also alleged that the government has forcibly removed people from the camps.
But in a recent interview, a representative of the Pakistan’s Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) said that was not the case and he hailed the response both by the government and by relief groups.
“It was tremendous work,” ERRA representative Rab Nawaz told a group of US and European aid workers and church officials. Nawaz also defended the pace of reconstruction efforts, which some have criticised as proceeding too slowly. “This needs time,” he said.
A group of villagers from the small community of Naran, who had relocated to a camp near Balakot City, itself was heavily destroyed in the quake, said they remained uncertain when they could return to their village, some 86 kilometres away.
The villagers were also unsure how they would regain their livelihoods, as their cattle, a crucial means of support, had all been lost in the earthquake. Even so, they said the authorities had done a good job in their initial response to the disaster.
Still, the International Crisis Group (ICG), which monitors international crises, was highly critical of the Pakistani government in a recent report, calling the disaster response “ill-planned” and “poorly executed”.
Among other things, it faulted authorities for tolerating radical Islamic groups, banned under the national Anti-Terrorism Law, and allowing them to respond to the emergency.
Said the International Crisis Group: “Should jihadi groups that have been active in relief work remain as involved in reconstruction, threats to domestic and regional security will increase.”
The Action of Churches Together aid network is an associate of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC).
[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches]