Re: Pakistan’s Success Story: Rising from ruins of the 10/8 2005 Earthquake
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/LRON-77UD5E?OpenDocument
Pakistan: Earthquake recovery declared a success
ISLAMABAD, Oct 9 (APP): The aid workers have declared earthquake reconstruction efforts a success, thanks to a massive humanitarian response and a policy of giving aid directly to the people affected.** According to Voice of America, Jean Christophe Adrian of United Nations Habitat in Pakistan, which is providing reconstruction training to quake victims, says the government’s policy of giving direct financial assistance to those in need has worked.**
“When this approach is taken, the pace of reconstruction is much much higher, the quality of reconstruction is much better, you avoid corruption because you don’t have to pass through contractors, and the actual satisfaction of the people with the end result is much higher because they rebuild a house which responds much better to their needs and their liking,” said Adrian. International donors pledged billions of dollars in aid, including half a billion dollars from the United States. This has helped re-build homes, schools, and hospitals in the devastated areas and get peoples’ lives back to normal. On the morning of October 8, 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake hit remote and mountainous areas of Kashmir and Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.
Tens of thousands of Pakistanis were buried alive. Three and a half million people were left homeless when their mud-brick and stone houses, and poorly built schools, collapsed or were swept away by landslides. Country is commemorating the second anniversary of a devastating earthquake that took the lives of more than 73,000 people and left millions homeless. Two years on, the relief effort has been declared a success. Less than 7,000 people now live in tents.