KP CM, PTI chief Imran Khan visit injured people at hospital, inspect damages in quake affected areas
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said on Tuesday that formulation of comprehensive preventive and preparedness strategy to mitigate catastrophic effects of earthquakes and other natural calamities had become inevitable after the recent horrifying earthquake.
Talking to district administration, hospitals’ authorities and media personnel during his visit to Shangla, Timergarah, Lower Dir, and Swat districts of Malakand Division, the chief minister said that the KP government and the PTI central leadership had started brainstorming on such a plan. He said that effective implementation of building control codes for both urban and rural areas would be ensured to avoid human causalities that are caused by natural disasters and absence of adequate preventive measures particularly in upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf Chairman Imran Khan also accompanied the chief minister during the visit.
The chief minister said that relief and rescue operations were in full swing now in all earthquake-hit areas of the province and that the provincial government had dispatched essential relief goods including food items to Malakand, Hazara and other calamity-hit parts of the province. He asked the health and relief authorities to fully mobilise their resources to rescue and rehabilitate the affected people. He directed the revenue and the district administrations to conduct a detailed survey of the affected areas in order to ascertain the losses of properties and public facilities including roads and other communications infrastructure.
The CM and the PTI chief went to hospitals and inquired after the health of injured persons. They also issued directives for optimum care of the patients who were injured in the earthquake.
They expressed sympathies with the earthquake victims and their families and assured to take all possible measures for their rehabilitation.
The chief minister and Imran Khan were informed by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) officials at Alpuri, Shangla that death toll in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had reached 185 while over 2,000 were injured and that Shangla was the worst hit district of the province where 38 people were killed due to earthquake.
Earlier, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Imran Khan had an aerial view of the earthquake affected Malakand Division and found that special arrangements were needed to reach the earthquake victims of the far flung and remote areas of Malakand region.