By Nita Bhalla and Abu Arqam Naqash
NEW DELHI/MUZAFFARABAD (AlertNet) - Disaster-hit Pakistan may be forced to suspend plans to build schools and clinics in Kashmir, devastated by an earthquake five years ago, unless it receives more funds to help survivors of this summer's flooding, government officials and aid workers say.
Foreign donors pledged more than $6 billion for relief and reconstruction after a 7.6 magnitude quake struck Pakistan's northern Kashmir region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Oct 8, 2005, killing more than 73,000 people and leaving 3.5 million homeless.
Over half of this was earmarked for long-term reconstruction in the quake zone -- an area of 28,000 square km (10,810 sq miles). Not all those pledges were honoured and the government was left responsible for funding projects such as rebuilding schools and hospitals, aid workers say.
Those plans are at risk, officials say, if donors do not give enough to help Pakistan deal with its latest natural disaster -- massive flooding that has disrupted the lives of 20 million people.
"The government of Pakistan had made a commitment to fund the reconstruction of schools and hospitals, but if funding does not come through for the floods, the government may have to divert money for the earthquake-hit areas towards the flood-affected areas," said Liaqat Hussain Chaudhry, director-general of the State Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (SERRA) in Kashmir.
"The international community should not see the floods in isolation -- the floods are very much attached with the earthquake reconstruction and if they don't give for floods, it will affect earthquake reconstruction efforts.Â?
The floods have inundated hundreds of villages, destroyed crops and washed away roads from Pakistan's far north to the deep south in what is believed to be the country's worst humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations has appealed for $2 billion but response from international donors has been poor with only 33 percent of required amount received.
FIVE YEARS ON
Before this year's flood, the 2005 earthquake -- which also hit neighbouring India -- was considered to be the worst natural disaster in the country's history.
The dead included more than 16,000 schoolchildren crushed to death when their classrooms collapsed on top of them.
While most of the quake-hit communities have rebuilt their homes and restarted their lives, officials in the worst-hit area of Kashmir say only 532 schools out of the required 2,833 schools have so far been built, while 68 out of the 170 health facilities still need to be constructed.
As a result, people living in the region say their children have had to endure harsh winters and sweltering summers being taught out in the open with no shelter.
"I am constantly receiving messages from parents about how long their children will have to sit under the open sky to receive an education," said Chaudhry Rasheed, a member of Legislative Assembly in Muzaffarabad, KashmirÂ?s capital.
"BUILD BACK BETTER"
But there has been progress in other areas, aid workers say.
They say the slogan to "Build back better" coined after the earthquake has, in many ways, happened. Hundreds of thousands of homes and public buildings built in the last five years are earthquake-resilient.
Remote mountainous village communities, which suffered from acute poverty and low literacy rates, now have better access to clean drinking water and toilets and schools have been built for girls.
The disaster also brought indirect benefits such as the introduction of a new culture of banking among these remote communities due to fact that post-disaster compensation was paid through newly-established bank accounts -- something the villagers had never been exposed to before.
However, some of the quake-affected communities have complained about the slow pace of reconstruction, accusing authorities of siphoning off aid money meant for the building of infrastructure such as roads and bridges.
"Billions of rupees donated by the international community for reconstruction have been embezzled or misused by the officials assigned with the task of rehabilitation and reconstruction," said Shaukat Ganie, a lawyer, who heads the Tehreek-e-Tameer e-Nau or Movement for Reconstruction -- a group of social activists.
Government officials say there is no evidence to suggest that corruption has occurred, adding that expectations that everything could be rebuilt in just five years are unrealistic.
"It took 60 years to construct what was there before the earthquake, but that was destroyed in less than 60 seconds. So to reconstruct it better will definitely take some time," SERRA's Chaudhry said.
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