NEW DELHI (AlertNet) - As Pakistani authorities and aid workers battle to respond to the needs of millions of people hit by the worst floods in living memory, the country is marking the fifth anniversary on Friday of the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck its Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, killing more than 73,000 people and leaving 3.5 million homeless.
Five years after the quake experts give AlertNet their thoughts on the situation in the region and progress made on disaster response and risk reduction in a country highly vulnerable to earthquakes, floods, droughts, cyclones and conflict-related emergencies.
The experts are: Juergen Clemens, senior desk officer for Pakistan for Malteser International; Azmat Ulla, head of the South Asia delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC); Abdul Qadir, head of environment and energy program at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Erwann Michel-Kerjan, managing director of the Wharton Risk Center.
What overall improvements in disaster management have been made since the earthquake?
Juergen Clemens: If you compare the floods 2010 with the earthquake 2005, yes, there have been improvements because it was only after the earthquake, that the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was set up. There were certain institutions at a government level before but these had been quite inappropriate with regards to funding, training and equipment. There have been a lot of programmes and achievements over the last five years, but still there has still not been enough time to set up a fully fledged system which would be comparable to similar systems in many Asian countries or many western countries.
Abdul Qadir: One change that I see is that people are constructing houses with lighter construction material which is very different from the past. This is a positive development as at least there would be less damage if there was another quake of a similar magnitude in the future. But I feel there has to be a sustained effort to make sure that people are aware of their vulnerabilities and what measures they can adopt when a disaster hits them. Sustained messages, sustained training must be given as people may forget about what happened and if there are no refresher messages going to the people, they may forget and revert back to their more traditional and higher risk construction methods.
Azmat Ulla: I think this was a turning point for government and for many agencies, including us. This tragedy provided us with the opportunity to strengthen the capacities of our member organisation, the Pakistan Red Crescent Society. It was an opportunity out of tragedy. One of the things that I welcome a lot is that from the very large buildings to the small houses, the authorities have insisted that we use lightweight roofing which makes the building much safer as it makes it less top heavy. Virtually everywhere I have been in the quake-hit area, this has been applied to certainly all public buildings.
Do you think disaster response lessons learnt from the quake have been applied during the recent floods?
Juergen Clemens: With regards to mobilising resources, I would say, yes. We definitely have the advantage now as we have a U.N. coordination system to help liaison between government at national and provincial level with U.N. agencies as well as national and international NGOs and getting resources. However, the capacity of the civil government is still too weak and that was evident in the floods as most of the relief activities in the first weeks were relying on the army, which was like it was during the earthquake. There are definitely still weaknesses, in particular, in taking up responsibilities at certain levels of the government. I think the response capacities are better in Pakistan but the country is still not really capable to deal with such extreme disasters and these floods that happened this year were extraordinary. I really doubt that Pakistan -- even with all the support of the international community -- could have set up a system to cope with this disaster just within five years.
Azmat Ulla: From our point of view, Red Crescent/Red Cross volunteers are now better trained as a result of their experiences during the earthquake. They understand the needs after a disaster better such as shelter, access to clean water and proper sanitation as well as healthcare. So what they learnt from the earthquake has been very useful to further their humanitarian imperative. It also helps when we relate it to the current floods in Pakistan. Our member organisation has also learnt more on the intervention on strategising, the need to build up volunteers, and the building up of their skills into integrated shelter, water and sanitation when it comes to disaster response and recovery.
Erwann Michel-Kerjan: These floods were not just another disaster; when 1/5 or more of your entire country is under water, for weeks or even months, you need to totally reconsider the way you look at disaster management. It will be critical moving forward for Pakistan to integrate that this issue will not be solved by the government alone (which remains pretty weak there), but by joining forces of the private sector, NGOs and citizens.
Has disaster risk reduction gained greater priority after the earthquake
Juergen Clemens: After the earthquake, there was the slogan to "build back better" and there were lots of programmess to train labourers and construction workers to rebuild houses and public buildings to be more resilient to earthquakes. The Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) has a team of monitoring experts to check the ongoing construction work on public buildings and intervene if standards are not followed. So definitely disaster risk reduction has been part of the overall reconstruction efforts.
Abdul Qadir: Disaster Risk Reduction has now become an important element as part of the planning systems at the national and provincial levels. There has been institutionalisation of various codes for the construction of new buildings for instance. Those codes are now taken as the basic design parameter for construction in the main urban centres at least. They have brought in parameters where builders have to abide by codes especially for earthquake-prone areas. The other improvement has been made in community dwellings in disaster-prone areas which have emerged after the quake. People are becoming more and more aware that with little changes in the way they construct can better protect them from the impacts of earthquake. The National Institute of Disaster Management, established after the 2005 earthquake, have been raising the awareness of local authorities on various aspects of disaster management. Different training modules in different parts of the country have been happening.
What should be the priorities for Pakistan in dealing with disasters?
Juergen Clemens: Local volunteers must be trained in first aid, search and rescue -- there we see a big gap. Most disaster response capacities are centralised -- either at the national, provincial or district level -- but actually many people live in remote areas where there is no fire brigade, no ambulances or anything. And so, for these areas which are also prone to disasters, we are training the people so they can take up the first immediate rescue activities on their own. Malteser International has been involved in training them and providing them with equipment for medical and first aid, so that they can support their next of kin/neighbours up to a certain level and just bridge the gap until the better equipped, centralised disaster response teams would then come to these spots.
Abdul Qadir: For Pakistan, we need to have localised disaster response planning and also the implementation of those plans. This is a country which starts from a coastline and goes into high mountains so we cannot have just one disaster resource plan for the whole country. We need very localised plans, for example, we should have a different approaches for mountainous, coastal belt and plains. Also, at a provincial level, the institutions are very active and fully staffed in dealing with disaster response but at the districts level, there is a need to strengthen institutions and the local community to minimise the risk to themselves and their property. Those kinds of instruments currently do not exist. If we want to pull out a lesson from the floods, there has to be more local disaster response mechanism that are community based and less driven by the national institutions.
Erwann Michel-Kerjan: Pakistan will need to move quickly at a strategic level by starting to better prepare in advance for future disasters: What are the lessons learned? How much money would be required to implement the proper risk reduction measures? How much more to assure a resilient society? Can we start to put disaster risk reduction and disaster risk financing on the top of the political agenda? The timing of these floods has been terrible donation-wise and it is also critical for the media to demonstrate more clearly the ripple effects on other countries of badly managed large-scale catastrophes in that part of the world. I'm very surprised by the lack of coverage of these floods here in the US or Europe; many might think this is a Pakistani issue only, when in reality given that we now all live in a small village -- planet earth -- we should be very worried about making sure Pakistan does well through this crisis. Being selfish means taking care of others.
Azmat Ulla:In everything we do -- we need to look at things not just as a top down approach but also, as most aid agencies say, a bottom up approach. I think you need to do both simultaneously -- supporting national and provincial efforts as well as grassroots community efforts to reduce risks caused by disaster. A dollar spent in risk reduction equals many dollars spent in disaster response -- we need to keep hammering that message through -- not just to the authorities but also to the local communities.
**AlertNet factbox about humanitarian crises in Pakistan in the last decade
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