MANSEHRA: Even 16 years after a powerful earthquake turned their life upside down, there is no end to the misery of the survivors of the natural calamity in Balakot tehsil in Mansehra district.

A 7.6 magnitude earthquake had jolted Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at 08:39am along with Islamabad and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, killing over 100,000 people, including men, women and children.

Balakot resident Junaid Alam told Dawn that he clearly remembered the way the earth quacked before the buildings crumbled in no time.

“Seven members of my family were buried alive under the heavy mass of my house and I suffered injuries. I was too helpless to help them,” he said sighing sadly.

Balakot was the worst hit by the earthquake, which killed around 20,000 residents and turned the entire city to ruins.

They insist housing project for them jeopardised by vested interests

Mohammad Fareed, who lost three children to the calamity, said the anguish caused by the earthquake 16 years ago was still fresh in his mind.

“The anniversary of the earthquake brings back really sad memories. Every year, I suffer the heartbreak of losing so much within seconds,” he said.

The international community had pledged over $5.2 billion assistance for the rehabilitation of calamity survivors, while an international team of geologists and seismologists from Japan, France and Germany visited Balakot and recommended the reconstruction of the destroyed city at a safer place due to the presence of active volcanic fault lines beneath it.

In 2006, then military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, laid the foundation of the Rs12 billion New Balakot City project in Bakrial area near Mansehra to settle the displaced families.

Resident Fareed said the housing project was slated to complete in three to four years but it was still incomplete forcing the earthquake survivors to live in prefabricated houses.

An official of the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority insisted that the project got stuck in the slow lane mainly due to the shortage of funds.

He said none of the countries, which pledged funds for Balakot reconstruction, paid a single penny delaying the project and and thus, increasing its cost from Rs12 billion to over Rs16 billion.

The official said the federal government had paid Rs1.5 billion in 2006 to the people, whose 15,596 kanals of land was acquired for the proposed housing project meant for 5,000-7,000 families.

In 2009, the landowners of Bakrial demonstrated against the delayed project and demanded an increase in payments and allotment of more plots in the proposed housing scheme. A demonstrator lost life in a firing incident.

Mr Fareed insisted that the project was in doldrums despite assurances by the federal and provincial governments.

According to him, in 2018, then Supreme Court chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar had taken a suo motu notice of the delay, forcing the Erra to promise the project’s completion in 30 months. However, the promise wasn’t fulfilled.

Lawyer Munir Hussain Lughmani, who pleaded the case of the calamity survivors in the court, moved the apex court seeking contempt proceedings against those responsible for the delay.

Tahir Khan of the Tehreek-i-Takmeel Balakot complained that the politicians had miserably failed to raise voice for the people, who lost everything to the 2005 earthquake.

He told Dawn that the calamity survivors genuinely felt abandoned by the authorities as there had been no let-up in their misery over the last 16 years.

Mr Tahir insisted that vested interests not only brought the New Balakot City project to a halt but jeopardised it as well.

UPGRADED: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has upgraded the Barkund basic health unit as a rural health centre for better patient care.

PTI Hazara division information secretary Ajmal Khan Swati told reporters here on Wednesday that the chief minister had not only ordered the up-gradation of the health facility but also sanctioned Rs50 million for its new building.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2021