It has been over three months since one of the worst ever earthquakes rocked Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) on 8 October 2005. The tragedy was unimaginable and the loss of life and property unprecedented. The damage control agencies did get into action but the scale of devastation and its aftermath brought into sharp focus the inadequacy and unprepared state of disaster management system in the region.

 

The worst affected area was Pakistan administered part of Kashmir where over 100,000 are feared to have perished and even a larger number injured and over a million rendered homeless. Thousands died in Indian administered Kashmir and well over 100,000 were displaced. Troops and local people struggled to access remote villages and sifted through rubble of flattened houses pulling out the dead. The horrifying picture of death and destruction unfolded as army and air force personnel accessed areas untouched by rescue efforts.

 

Aid from across the world today poured into Pakistan, which buried its dead and rushed the injured to hospitals as hungry survivors looted food from army convoys and shops. The relief work in these areas hit by landslides had to be done through an air bridge of helicopters rushed in by the US. Help arrived from UK, Spain, France, Japan, Russia, UAE, Iran and others.

 

In the Indian administered part of J&K, the federal government rushed a large number of tents, blankets, sugar, water, medicines besides airlifting several medical and surgical teams to the quake ravaged areas, besides extending massive financial support. With winters having already set in, the race is on to distribute relief and rehabilitate the victims. Thousands of temporary sheds and hundreds of community structures, to house groups of survivors, have been built. Several national level NGOs are extending help by building community structures and prefabricated units. The mobilisation of relief effort has been historic and aid has been taken to thousands of victims within three months but hundreds of villages still remain to be covered by the relief effort.

 

Providing heating system in relief camps during the freezing winters was proving to be a major challenge. Efforts are on to ensure provision of winterised shelters for millions of survivors living at low altitudes. In POK, the UN refugee agency in its latest round is providing each person with 3 blankets and each tent with 2 plastic sheets and 4 mattresses. These measures are certainly temporary and not adequate enough for the victims to survive the extreme Himalayan winters. Because of the extreme winters, the reconstruction activities in quake-affected areas would be taken up in March-April 2006.

 

No less tragic than the devastation caused by the earthquake is the manner in which politicians make a beeline to J&K to extract mileage from the death and destruction. The local officials could do the symbolic distribution of cheques or blankets by these VIPs. Instead of wasting taxpayer’s money on conducting VIP’s tours, it could be better utilized on long term rehabilitation programme for the victims.

 

Thousands of people are still missing. Many of those who survive would need psychosocial support for the years to come, especially the orphaned children. Instead of providing food, shelter, clothing and education to the hapless children, there is the well grounded suspicion that terrorist organisations are recruiting them for weapons training while gangs of human traffickers lure them into prostitution.

 

“When God is with you…who can be against,” President of India, Abdul Kalam told the quake survivors when he visited them on 26.11.2005. Nothing is perhaps more apt than these words of the President to describe the predicament of the millions of survivors who have been left to the mercy of God to fend for themselves.