Quake aid crisis strikes Pakistan
In a year when humanitarian disasters seem unending, the earthquake that hit southern Pakistan on Saturday 8th October stands out as an on-going crisis of alarming proportions. With over 73,000 people dead and an estimated 3.3 million left homeless, short-term relief for victims of the earthquake presents an unprecedented challenge for aid provision.
Despite the magnitude of the disaster, adequate donations and aid from rich western nations have not been forthcoming and both the Pakistani government and aid organisations such as Oxfam have called for greater contributions to avert a further humanitarian crisis as a result of the approaching winter.
The earthquake, which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale, mostly affected Pakistani Kashmir, the region that has been at the centre of disputes between India and Pakistan since the countries’ independence from Britain in 1947.
The capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, suffered considerable damage, but the most serious effects of the quake were felt in rural mountainous areas across both regions of Kashmir as well as the north-west frontier province of Pakistan. Many of the homes in these regions were constructed of unstable materials and immediate relief efforts were hampered by landslides, leaving hundreds of villages demolished and without aid.
While many countries were quick to pledge money and offer direct aid as the scale of the disaster emerged, it was several days before people in affected areas received help, many sleeping in the open until the government and foreign agencies were able to coordinate their relief efforts, with 500,000 people in remote areas seeing no aid for several weeks after the initial quake. Worryingly, provisions for the approaching winter are still in desperately short supply which will inevitably lead to more deaths.
Despite initial offerings from European countries, the United Nations was forced to issue an appeal for aid, culminating in a donor conference on October 26th. In real terms, to date only $135 million has been received of the $550 million the United Nations has called for. Much of the aid pledged has been assigned to long-term reconstruction projects, despite urgent pleas for immediate aid. Meanwhile the Himalayan winter threatens to cut off remote areas and increase the death toll catastrophically. In response the United Kingdom has pledged less than a tenth of the aid it gave to last year’s tsunami victims.
With around 1.5 million British residents having links to those areas affected by the earthquake, the British government’s response could have significant political repercussions. The British Muslim community has already expressed disappointment and anger at the amount of aid offered. The release of a video in which Al Qaida’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri calls on Muslims to offer all help possible to Pakistan illustrates the potential for the disaster and its aftermath to become highly politicised.
The October 8th earthquake, which ravaged large areas of Pakistan and parts of Indian territory, and left over three million people homeless, will prove a grave challenge to agencies involved in the relief effort. The inadequate aid offered by rich Western governments could have serious consequences, both humanitarian and political. With a harsh winter fast approaching and millions still without shelter and other essentials, the human cost of the Pakistan earthquake could prove more devastating than so far imagined.
