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| October 06, 2006 | Friday | Ramazan 12, 1427 |
Devastated Balakot still home to many
PESHAWAR, Oct 5: Ali Ahmed, who is in his 20s, is content with his small juice outlet in Balakot where the main bazaar comprising over 100 small shops has re-emerged on the debris of shopping plazas destroyed in the Oct 8 earthquake last year.The young man is a native of Balakot where 95 per cent of about 7,000 housing units and all shopping plazas, except one, turned into heaps of rubble. Ali Ahmed is one of several shopkeepers who have started their businesses from scratch.
The new shops built on both sides of the dual carriageway running through the bazaar, have come up in a place which witnessed great commercial activity daily before the earthquake.
Over the past few months, the new bazaar with shops constructed in accordance with guidelines set by the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (Erra) has experienced increasing business activity because of the holy month of Ramazan and the upcoming Eidul Fitr.
Though a majority of the city’s population has moved to Mansehra and Abbottabad districts, yet quite a large number of people living in shelters erected with corrugated iron sheets in villages across Balakot and Kaghan valleys depend on the new bazaar to procure items of daily use.
With the government’s plan to establish a model town at a nearby area moving at a snail’s pace due to lengthy procedures, people of Balakot have started efforts to build their lives amid piles of rubbles.
Like many other shopkeepers, Ali Ahmed comes to Balakot daily from the distant town of Mansehra where he moved his family after their house in the old Balakot city had collapsed.
“Where else would I go to earn a livelihood except my ancestral city,” says Ali Ahmed.
The government agencies and representatives of the United Nations believe that even if a model town is built in place of Balakot, the old city — which according to recent geological surveys stood on fault lines — will re-emerge out of the rubble. They say some of the affected people will find it difficult to leave Balakot because of their emotional attachment to the city.
“It is normal. It has happened everywhere in the world as there will always be a fraction of the population who feel affectionate about their place and they would rebuild their dwellings in the same place even though it is unsafe to build houses there again,” says UN representative Jan J. Vandemoortele.
The government has estimated that it will take five years, or even more, to establish the model town at Bakriyal, 20km from the old Balakot city. Until then people of Balakot will continue to live in difficult conditions.
Erra chairman Altaf Saleem told Dawn that before starting work on the site of the new city a lot of planning would need to be done to ensure a safe future and better civic amenities for its dwellers.
However, a large number of Balakot families have already moved to safer places. Those who could afford have rented houses in Mansehra and Abbottabad bur for those depending on aid, Balakot is the ultimate choice even if they have to live in tents and shelters made close to the rubble of their houses.
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