Pakistan earthquake second anniversary article by Shahid Malik, Under Secretary of State for International Development
8 October 2007
In 2005 more than 70,000 people in Pakistan lost their lives and 2.5 million people were made homeless by the most tragic event in the short history of the country. It’s important that we in the UK don’t forget what happened on that terrible Saturday morning two years ago – I know I never will.
I have an obvious interest in the Pakistan earthquake as the new Minster for
South Asia in Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) but I
also happened to be in Islamabad when the earthquake struck at nine in the
morning and witnessed at first the devastation that it unleashed. British rescue
workers were the first to arrive at the scene of Islamabad’s worst casualty, a
twelve floor apartment block called Margala Towers. I, along with others stayed
at the scene for many hours attempting to support the effort but alas there were
precious few survivors. I watched on as anxious families waited for news of
their loved ones and tried to comfort them as much as possible but sadly, more
often than not I witnessed corpses being brought out on stretchers.
Despite the scenes at Margala Towers none of us imagined for a second that
tens of thousands of others were also dead, many more thousands injured and
millions displaced in Kashmir, the NWFP and Northern territories.
Most of what we saw on TV and read in the newspapers focused on the rescue
efforts going on in Islamabad, Balakot and Muzaffarabad. Rescue teams have only
a few days at most to reach people trapped under their homes, offices or schools
before time runs out. While in Islamabad I met the first international rescue
workers to arrive in Pakistan. They were from the British charity, Rapid UK, and
had been flown out within hours of the earthquake with support from DFID. The 84
rescuers and 4 search dogs they brought with them worked in all the major
affected areas and pulled out 13 people from the rubble. Meeting the rescuers
and witnessing their efforts as a Briton was one of my proudest moments. I raced back to Parliament to speak on the floor of the chamber just two
hours after reaching Heathrow.
As fate would have it the Parliamentary questions when I arrived at Westminster were for DFID and I congratulated the government for hastily dispatching Rapid UK. I recall pleading with Hilary Benn, the then Secretary of State for DFID, to send more helicopters because although aid was reaching vehicle accessible places like Islamabad, it could not reach the hardest hit areas like Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Rawalakot. I urged the government to make a long term commitment to Pakistan as I believed the reconstruction work could take as long as 15 years.
Back home in the UK, people from all communities were helping raise £70 million for charities working to provide food, water, shelter and medicines for the survivors. That was in addition to the £56 million the government committed to various charities, including Islamic Relief, to help save lives in the first few months after the earthquake. People in Britain should be proud of what they did and I know people in Pakistan truly appreciated our efforts. It was symbolic of the powerful friendship between our two countries. We are joined not just by ties of blood but a common history and a shared belief in helping our fellow human beings, regardless of race or religion.
But we should not forget the work that is still being done to rebuild lives –
mostly by Pakistanis themselves. Just because we no longer see those earthquake
images does not mean things are back to normal. About 220,000 homes still need
to be rebuilt, including homes for the 12,000 families who also lost their land.
Out of the 305 health care centres that were destroyed, only 212 are currently
being rebuilt. There are still many children who do not have permanent schools
to go to, and 90% of the 949 local government offices destroyed or damaged still
need to be rebuilt. The UK Government, through DFID, continues to play its part
and has given £70 million for the long term rebuilding of earthquake-affected
areas. We are working with the Government of Pakistan’s Earthquake
Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority to ensure that our money is spent on
national priorities. These include urgent funding for earthquake-proof housing
and helping to restore health and education services to at least the level they
were before the earthquake.
Our support, along with the work of other aid agencies and the Government of Pakistan, has helped to rebuild 95 educational institutions, prevented major outbreaks of disease, and provided more than 350 temporary offices so local authorities can carry on working.
The UK’s commitment to and support for Pakistan goes beyond just helping out in emergencies. Last year the UK decided to double aid for Pakistan to £480 million between 2008-2011. This will help to get 8 million children, mostly girls, into primary school, help ensure that 30,000 fewer women die during childbirth and enable many more poor families to increase their incomes, to name a few of our goals. Millions of poor people across Pakistan are already benefiting from our support.
The Pakistani economy is booming and the World Bank predicts that the national income will rise by 7 per cent in 2007. But the aftermath of the earthquake showed what that economic success cannot disguise: about 40 million Pakistanis live on less than 50 pence a day and one in ten children die before their fifth birthday. Providing basic services for the entire population is difficult enough, let alone coping with the impact and aftermath of a major disaster.
As a friend of Pakistan, the UK wants to see a prosperous and safe country for all its citizens. I will continue to work to help achieve that in my role as DFID Minister and I know many people across the UK will continue to play their part too.
Shahid Malik is MP for Dewsbury and the UK Minister for International Development.
