Cataclysm in Kashmir

▪ 2006

      On Oct. 8, 2005, a magnitude-7.6 earthquake on the border between Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province and Kashmir brought tragedy not only to Pakistan but to India and Afghanistan as well. The epicentre was near the city of Muzaffarabad. Several towns were effectively leveled. Schools collapsed and children and teachers were crushed. Some 80,000 people perished, the vast majority of them in the Pakistani-administered region of Kashmir. Compounding the horror, destruction from the earthquake and bad weather made the arrival of aid, particularly to remote mountain areas, painfully slow in arriving. With hospitals in Muzaffarabad destroyed, makeshift trauma centres had to be contrived. A week after the quake, millions were still without food, water, and shelter, and the UN estimated that two weeks after the event, only 30–40% of the affected villages had even been inspected. The acute shortage of aid increased the death toll, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless.

      A number of political adjustments followed the massive destruction. In places where the Pakistani army could not reach to give aid, Islamist militant groups were often able to assist. India, which had long contested control of the Kashmir region with Pakistan but itself was badly damaged, offered aid. Pakistan agreed to receive relief supplies—tents, blankets, food, and medicine—but refused an offer of helicopters. Weeks of negotiation resulted in an agreement to temporarily open points along the India-Pakistan Line of Control to allow aid to pass through. At year's end, however, UN relief workers said that they were still working on rescue and survival, and aid still had not reached many of those survivors who faced the onslaught of winter.

Patricia Bauer

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