Impacts of Massive Destruction on the Country - Research Paper Example

? On the morning of October 8, 2005 at 8:50 A.M local time, Pakistan was hit by a massive earthquake, which is considered the strongest in last 100 years. It destroyed the Himalayan Region of the Northern Pakistan with a magnitude of 7.4. USGS states 86,000 people’s death with 69,000 injured including extensive damage in northern Pakistan. Various other Northern areas of the state were also badly affected such as Gilgit, Baltistan, Swat and Khyber province of Pakistan including major cities such as Rawalpindi, Islamabad. The event shook the economy of the country and $5 billion damage of the property, livestock crops and business was estimated. Although to date, it is still not very clear that Pakistan’s relief efforts were a success or not because of the excessive obstacles created against government, policy makers and humanitarian organization by the lack of communication and transport, but rehabilitation and rescue services started as soon as the underground eruption hit the area Name of the student: Name of the teacher: Course number: Submission date: Even after six years, Pakistan is still enduring impacts of the massive earthquake occurred on the morning of October 8, 2005. Pakistan is a sovereign Islamic state in South Asia. Its northern areas consists of lush green valleys, mountains, ice cold lakes, fruit laden orchards and flower laden slopes. With its rich historical past, these areas serve as heaven of relaxation for tourists as depicted in figure 1 and 2. Figure 1 Valley of Kashmir FIGURE 2: Valley of Swat On the morning of October 8, 2005 at 8:50 A.M local time, these areas were hit by a massive earthquake. The magnitude of the earthquake was Mw =7.6 which was the strongest earthquake in the last 100 years in the area. It hit the Himalayan Region of the Northern Pakistan and Kashmir. Its location, as stated by U.S Geological Survey, 2010 was 34.939° N, 73.629°E which was 26 Km in depth and 105 Km away from the capital of the state, Islamabad.(USGS,2010). The earthquake epicenter was 19km away from the city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistan administered part of Kashmir, Known as Azad Kashmir (part of Kashmir which is not under the forceful jurisdiction of India). (EERI,2006). The area was known as Paradise on earth and this enormous earthquake has disfigured its beauty to a great extent. Figure 3 illustrates the situation of the city before and after the event. Figure 3: City of Balakot: Before and After Destruction The initial death toll, according to media reports, was 30,000 people killed only in Kashmir with42, 397 people injured and 200 army soldiers killed on duty. Completely destroyed areas included the city of Muzaffarabad and Balakot, which turned into a plain piece of land after the quake. (Pakimp3,2005). The government’s official death toll is 75,000 whereas, USGS states 86,000 people’s death with 69,000 injured including extensive damage in northern Pakistan. Various other Northern areas of the state were also badly affected such as Gilgit, Baltistan, Swat and Khyber province of Pakistan. Major cities such as Rawalpindi, Islamabad were also affected. A 10- story residential building in Islamabad, named Margalla Towers collapsed completely, killing almost all of the occupants. The death toll grew significantly after the actual event due to harsh weather and difficulties in the support services. Severity of the destruction of earthquake is not completely attributed to the severe up thrust in the land plates but poor construction also played a major role in spreading the destruction. As figure 4 and figure 5 show an example of poor construction in the capital city of the country. FIGURE 5: Margalla Towers collapsed due to construction defects The severe shaking was not the limit of this massive natural disaster but aftershocks, landslides and rock falls also rocked the devastated areas a number of times for several weeks. Land sliding was the main feature of this event and earthquake triggered a band of landslidings along the fault rupture trace. These landslidings of both shallow and deep seated affected the area. They destroyed the roads and structures present at slope regions. These landslides even managed to change the course of the river. Rock falls including both large and small destructed roadways, structures and communities. According to an average 4 million people were left homeless. (USGS, 2011) In widespread collapses of schools, 19,000 children were killed. Affecting 500,000 families and destroying almost 17,000 of school buildings and hospitals, the earthquake left the living victims to face the upcoming harsh winter without any shelter. 780,000 buildings were destroyed completely or were beyond repair. Several areas remain cut off from any support because of their land routes being destroyed due to land sliding, even after three months of the main event. FIGURE 6: 19,000 Children killed in earthquake, 42,000 orphaned The event shook the economy of the country and $5 billion damage of the property, livestock crops and business was estimated.(Pubmed,2006). The timing and the geography of the earthquake made the conditions worse and put forth serious concerns about the vulnerability of the affected people and their ability to survive. As the affected areas were remote or mountainous where in October harsh winter hit the area. Saturday is a school going day for children in the region, children’s death rate was considerably high as they were trapped or buried under the collapsed buildings and their families were killed at home while sleeping. EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER AND SEISMOLOGY The epicentral region lies in the Himalayan range in the western Arc. Seismic activity in south Asia depends on the movement of Indian plate and Eurasian plate. Movement of Indian plate is at a rate of 40mm/ year and sub ducts below Eurasian plates which has formed over the years, Tibetan Plateau, Himalayan ranges, Karakoram, Pamir and Hindukush ranges illustrated in figure 7 (EEFIT,2005). Compression motion between the plate’s results in reverse thrust faults in these mountains. The resulting collision between the two plates has damaged the Indian plate into several pieces under the Kashmir basin which is known as Indus Kohistan Seismic zone. As verified in Figure 8(Fritz Institute, 2006). Balakot Bagh fault, which is the estimated source of earthquake shows the strike of 338 degree, dipping 50 degree in N-NE direction.(EERI,2006). FIGURE7: Epicenter region of the earthquake I Figure 8: Fault Region and Indian Plate movement Outside the rupture zone, that is beyond the distance of 5 to 10 km the effects of destruction can be attributed to poor construction as well as local site effects rather than the shaking of earthquake. The cities which were distant such as Lahore and Karachi suffered from aftershocks of the magnitude 4.6 and around. The cities within the ruptured zone were completely destroyed or badly wrecked such as Muzaffarabad and Balakot. Few of the areas such as Uri are completely wiped out from the face of the earth. Aftershocks in the nearby areas of Balakot suggest that the rupture zone expanded afterwards in the North Western direction. A total of 147 aftershocks were registered in the first day after the earthquake from 5.8 to 6.2 magnitudes. These shocks created the second wave of deaths as it created more difficulties for the rescue workers to save the trapped people in the collapsed buildings. Many slides were triggered by the aftershocks which caused widespread fatalities. More than 50% buildings in the rural areas were completely damaged and 30- 40% in the city of Muzaffarabad. Damage in these areas was directly due to shaking of the earth in the fault zone but the destructions in far away areas such as Abbotabad were due to poor construction. Most of the buildings in these areas are made of non-engineered unreinforced masonry (URM) wall construction without any steel reinforcing. Impact on these walls varied according the type and quality of the construction material used. Almost all of the school buildings in the area are under the supervision of Government. Subjective reports suggest that the damage was relatively higher in the Government owned building rather than non-governmental ones. Lack of proper construction and seismic designs are the suggested reason of their destruct. Figure 9 exemplify the degree of destruction in the area. Hospitals of the area also suffered from the same fate of collapsing. The main Combined Military Hospital in Muzaffarabad fell down, killing and injuring many patients and workers. Events of lack of proper post earth quake assessment also made the situation worse. Many hospitals and houses were evacuated by the people as a result of false alarm even though no damage was apparent in some of the well constructed houses or hospitals. FIGURE 9: Relief Camps in the destructed area . Road access to Jhelum, Neelum and Kaghan was completely cut off due to land sliding and rock falls. The debris of these small and large rocks presented a challenge for the rescuers to clear the roads and access these areas, as the roads were blocked completely, isolating the stricken areas. Although this situation was handled efficiently by the army of Pakistan as they associated 12 engineer battalions to resolve the situation.(Fritz Institute,2006) figure 10. Vast tertiary roads serving the mountainous regions took longer time to be re opened. FIGURE 10: Army Battalion clearing the roads for continuation of rescue activities Jhelum valley and Balakots’ transport system consist of widespread bridges including both suspension and concrete multiple span bridges. Which were damaged completely or their foundations were weakened. Figure 11 and figure 12 represents the degree of damage to these bridges. Water supply of the area is from River Neelum, the system was disconnected due to damage to water clarifier baffles and distribution piping’s were also destructed. Telecommunication towers were quickly repaired after the incident restoring the area’s communication by Federal Relief Commission (FRC) and Earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction Authority (ERRA), which were established quickly by the government. FIGURE 11: A broken suspension bridge FIGURE 12: Concrete bridges also collapsed during the massive earth shaking Either directly or indirectly, 3.5 million people were affected by the seismic activity. (UNFPA, 2006) Considering the statistics, the number of affected people during and after the earthquake was frightening. During early relief activities there was lack of co-ordination and death toll was increasing day by day. As many of the people were still trapped in fallen buildings and the people in relief camps died of unhygienic conditions, malnutrition, diseases and unavailability of shelter during harsh weather. FRA and ERRA later coordinated these relief activities in collaboration with several NGO’s. Overall, 0.5 million tents, 3.5 million blankets, 60,000 tons of food costing over $2 billion dollars were required.(EERI, 2006) The government, most foreign donors and nongovernmental organization has focused on the subject of long term planning to rescue the sufferers. The government of Pakistan has sought the donors with $5 billion rescue bill to be distributed over the period of ten years for the reconstruction. But even this generous financial support from the foreign countries cannot hold up the conditions in the affected area, it requires a lot more than the estimated figure. The earthquake has a long lasting effect on Pakistan’s economy, its infrastructure, social and political structure. The victims who were killed in the calamity were ill-fated but even more doomed were the ones who outlived the tragedy and were more vulnerable to the consequences of the earthquake.(IPRI,2006) As a result of this shock a lot of people moved from these northern areas to different cities which created a kind of demographic shock affecting the country economically, socially and politically Kashmir and other Northern areas of Pakistan provide agricultural support to the country and agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan’s economy. It is the direct loss in the economy; indirect loss includes disruption of the flow of the goods and services which results in reduced production and inflation. The housing sector is the mostly damaged sector ($1 billion dollar) followed by transport (US$343 million). The damage to food sector US$220 million, declined the productivity and further impairment in the living conditions were caused causing severe social consequences.(EEFIT, 2006). A lot of revenue was generated by these areas acting as a tourist resort which is also lost after the devastation. Immediate rehabilitation and rescue activities were essential to stop the mortality rate from increasing. To cover the expenses of the damage and provision of enough capital, so that affected individuals can start new businesses, required a huge amount and unfortunately that much amount could not be funded by any foreign country. Urgent shelter strategies were organized for the people living in the areas of high altitude and provided them with tented villages. Reconstruction of the area on former patterns requires a sum of capital which is still exorbitant for the country to dispense. Moreover, the children who were orphaned or were separated from their families at the time of chaos, are struggling to fend for themselves.(SOS, 2011). Rescue teams are also, till now, searching for the families of the children. Various NGO’s are working as custodians to provide shelter to those kids who lost both their parents in the earthquake. In order to provide them shelter a kind of children’s village is being set up in the affected areas to provide them home and a permanent shelter. Most of colleges and schools have been turned into permanent “tent colleges” as the Government is unable to rebuild these educational sites.(Figure 13) Hospitals have followed the same fate of being transformed into tented hospitals mainly due to financial inability and also due to fear of patients to stay indoors after the trauma. FIGURE 13: A tented school in the affected area In short, the government agencies were unable to handle the disaster, which was too massive for any single government or agency to handle. With cooperation and participation of people from the rest of the country and support from distant countries that enabled the government to bear the heavy burden. A survey conducted in the affected areas revealed that among all other undesirable effects of the trauma, a positive energy of unity and sympathy among the masses was also generated at that time due to which vast rescue activities were conducted with a large number of people volunteering their services. Although to date, it is still not very clear that Pakistan’s relief efforts were a success or not because of the excessive obstacles created against government, policy makers and humanitarian organization due to lack of communication and transport but rehabilitation and rescue services started as soon as the underground eruption hit the area. Enormous funds from unaffected areas of Pakistan were also collected for support and relief activities, as people gave away their entire belongings for the purpose. Both individual and collective support from inside and outside the country enable Pakistan to face the music but still a long lasting gap is created in the infrastructure, social, and economic status of the country. BIBLIOGRAPHY I. EEFIT Mission, The Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team, November 2005, http://www.istructe.org/knowledge/EEFIT/Documents/Kashmir_preliminary.pdf II. EERI Special Earthquake Report, The Kashmir Earthquake of October 8, 2005: Impacts in Pakistan, 2006< Available at>http://www.eeri.org/lfe/pdf/kashmir_eeri_2nd_report.pdf III. U.S Geological Survey, Earthquake Hazard Program,2010http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2005/usdyae/ IV. USGS, Earthquakes with 50,000 or More Deaths, 2011http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/most_destructive.php V. Pakimp3, Pakistan’s Earthquake Donation Appeal,2005http://www.pakimp3.org/pakistan_earth_quake.php VI. IPRI Fact file, Pakistan Earth Quake 2005 Rescue, Relief, Rehabilitation and Construction, 2006http://ipripak.org/factfiles/ff79.pdf VII. SOS Children’s Village, Pakistan Kashmir earthquake - six years on,2011http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/archive/2011/09/pakistan-kashmir-earthquake-six-years-on VIII. Fritz Institute, Surviving the Pakistan Earthquake: Perceptions of the Affected One Year Later,2006http://www.fritzinstitute.org/PDFs/findings/PakistanEarthquake_Perceptions.pdf IX. UNFPA, Pakistan Earthquake Update and Archive, October 2006 http://web.unfpa.org/emergencies/pakistan/ X. PubMed Central ,Relief work after the earthquake in Pakistan: a Pakistani-American physician's perspective Hassan Farooq, MD,2006http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1484535/ Read More