An earthquake of devastatingly high magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter Scale (RS) badly hit the northern part of the country (particularly Punjab, KP and Azad Kashmir). As reported by the Pakistan media besides Lahore, tremors of the October 26 earthquake were also felt in Islamabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot and other Punjab regions. Dubai, India and Afghanistan too were jolted by the quake.
It has been reported that the epicentre of the quake was in the Hindukush mountain range and it was 193 km underground. Experts say that the October 26/15 earthquake is the severest of all the quakes which have hit the country in over six and a half decades of its existence. It is said that over 270 people were killed, hundreds injured and thousands rendered shelterless by this earthquake. If one remembers, the October 8, 2005 quake that devastated the northern parts of country (Kashmir and KPK in particular) was of a magnitude of 7.6 on the RS. It caused massive destruction and about 100,000 innocent men, women and children had lost their valuable lives in the catastrophe.
Undeniably, the 8.1 magnitude earthquake that hit the country on October 26 could have caused destruction beyond ones stretch of imagination. It, in fact, could have taken a very heavy toll on the lives and properties of the people. We thank Allah the Almighty that it didn’t. In spite of this one cannot condone the gruesome impact that this quake had particularly on those who lost their near and dear ones and their dwellings in the tragedy. The Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Nawaz Sharif and the Chief of the Army Staff General Raheel Sharif promptly responded to the calamity by directing the concerned government authorities and the military personnel to undertake rescue and rehabilitation work.
In its endeavors to set forth stringent policies vis-à-vis construction of particularly high-rise buildings in the earthquake-prone northern regions of the country, particularly Islamabad, the government must direct the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and similar civic bodies in other quake affected regions to immediately form an experts panel of professionally qualified and highly experienced structural engineers to make a thorough assessment of the extent of damage the recent earthquake has done particularly to the high-rise buildings in the capital. This is extremely essential if a catastrophe of greater magnitude is to be avoided in the future. Equally important is the issue of quick rehabilitation of the people badly affected by the quake. The government must immediately gear up the concerned government agencies to urgently undertake rehabilitation work, in the affected regions, to bring respite to the quake-stricken people.
M FAZAL ELAHI
Islamabad