Low Cost Housing Developments

60 PERCENT OF PAKISTAN EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS STILL DISPLACED, VULNERABLE TO COMING WINTER
Fritz Institute, October 7, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO - One year after a devastating earthquake in northern Pakistan killed 73,000 people and rendered 3.3 million people homeless, a Fritz Institute survey released today finds that 60% of the survivors are still displaced. Over 90% of the affected population expressed that they remain in need of assistance with food, shelter and livelihoods almost one year after the earthquake.

“Our findings are alarming. Too many earthquake survivors are facing another winter without basic services and adequate shelter,” said Anisya Thomas, Ph.D., managing director of Fritz Institute, a California-based non-profit that specializes in improving global disaster relief operations.

In a culture where independence is prized, self-sufficiency has dropped significantly. Poverty is increasing. Sixty-three (63%) percent of survivors report a loss of income, with the people at the lowest income levels most affected. Before the earthquake, only three (3%) percent reported inadequate income for survival, while today thirty-one (31%) percent report not having enough income to survive. Nearly one-fifth (19%) of the survivors said that their lives will never be normal again.

One year after the earthquake, over fifty (50%) percent of people surveyed reported that they still needed and had not received assistance with food, water, livelihood and clothing. The unmet needs for shelter, counseling and medical care were 38%, 39% and 46%, respectively.

Overall, earthquake survivors who had received help expressed satisfaction with the assistance provided. Those dissatisfied with services noted their frustration with the process of aid provision. Aid recipients, for example, noted a lack of transparency in aid distribution leading to perceptions of inequity. A lack of cultural appropriateness of aid was also identified by beneficiaries, who reported their dissatisfaction with the inability of women to observe purdah in tents and camps.

Those who did receive help overwhelmingly identified the Pakistani government including the military as the principal provider of aid, with over seventy-five (75) percent expressing satisfaction with government assistance. Over time, the role of international NGOs has increased and they are now the main providers of food, medical care, and toilet and sanitation services. Local NGOs had a relatively small presence according to the survey respondents.

In the rehabilitation efforts it appears that there was minimal consultation with those who were affected. Most households reported that they had no input in the decision-making processes related to the restoration of livelihoods (98%), shelter (98%), counseling and psycho-social care (98%), and food assistance (97%).

“Even a year after the earthquake, it is surprising that the overwhelming majority of aid recipients in our survey reported not being consulted,” commented Dr. Thomas. “It is reasonable to say that the voices of the affected were not adequately incorporated into the rehabilitation efforts to date.”

Key Findings
SHELTER: Sixty (60) percent of survivors are still displaced and unable to return to their homes, two-thirds (66%) of whom are living in tents. Most are at high altitudes, leaving them vulnerable to the coming winter;

INCOME: Survivors have become much poorer with sixty-three (63) percent of households reporting loss of income due to damaged land or facilities, and thirty-one (31) percent saying they do not have enough income to survive;

RELIEF EFFORTS: Help provided was dramatically inadequate, with one-quarter (27%) to one-half (53%) of the survivors surveyed reporting basic unmet needs two months after the earthquake. Over half of the respondents in need of livelihood restoration, drinking water, sanitation, clothing and relocation at the 2-month mark, reported that they still had not received the assistance close to a year after the earthquake.

RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS: Of those who reported receiving assistance two months after the earthquake, most identified the government as the primary provider of shelter, food, medical assistance and livelihood restoration. However, government relief efforts ten months after the earthquake appear to be dropping: two months after the earthquake, forty-two (42) percent of the surveyed survivors identified the government as providing shelter, while ten months later only thirty-two (32) percent identified the government. Over time, international NGOs have emerged as prominent provider of relief, for services including food, medical care, and toilet and sanitation services.

A YEAR AFTER THE DISASTER, THOUSANDS ARE STILL TRAPPED IN MISERY, THEIR HOMES RUINED AND THEIR LIVES DESTROYED
Martin Fletcher, The Times, London, October 7, 2006

A Himalayan winter is approaching for the victims of the worst disaster to hit Pakistan, Martin Fletcher reports from Balakot

IT WAS 8.52am, and Rubi Noreen was walking home after delivering her six-year old son to school when a powerful earthquake struck northern Pakistan and Kashmir. A building collapsed on her. Her right leg was crushed. She was buried for six hours before rescuers dragged her out. But as tomorrow's anniversary of that catastrophe approaches, the 28-year-old from the town of Balakot in North West Frontier Province has cause to wonder whether she would be better off dead.

Her son was killed, and it was five days before his body was found in the wreckage of his school. Her comfortable middle-class home was destroyed, killing two sisters and a brother. A hotel owned by her family slid into the Kaghan River, and barely a building in the entire town, built up the sides of a steep mountain valley, was left standing.

One year on, we would never have found Rubi by ourselves. We were led to her by an aid worker who picked his way through the twisted door jambs, shattered walls and fallen masonry of what was once a pleasant residential neighbourhood. Beneath a flimsy shelter constructed from tarpaulins and plastic sheeting on the foundations of her former home she lay, with another sister, on a filthy old double bed retrieved from the rubble. Her leg, swollen and yellow, was encased in a calliper.

She is still unable to walk.

She was beyond tears, beyond emotion. "I want to go back to the old days, but I know that's impossible," she said softly. "God gave me my son. God took him away.

It's as if someone has ripped my heart out."

Rubi is not alone in her desolation. Before the earthquake Balakot was a prosperous town of around 40,000 people, a gateway to the hill stations farther north. Today it looks apocalyptic. Locals claim that a single building of two or more storeys was left standing, and they are not exaggerating.

A colourful bazaar has sprung up along what used to be the main street, the bridge across the river has been repaired, and huge amounts of rubble have been removed.

The authorities, working with an army of international aid agencies whose bases ring the town, have erected huts and tents to serve as schools and clinics. Most of Balakot, though, still lies in ruins.

About 8,000 of its inhabitants perished, many of them children. As many were injured. Some of the survivors have left, but most live in tents or jerry built shelters beside the remnants of their properties. Even those whose homes stand cannot live in them because they are unsound.

There has been no reconstruction work in Balakot. It has been "red-zoned" because it sits on a geological fault line. The Government plans to rebuild it near the village of Bakrial, about 14 miles (22km) away. The problem is that the new town will take years to build, the inhabitants of Bakrial are resisting, and the people of Balakot do not want to go.

"We have been living here for generations," Rubi said. "The graves of our elders are here. We can't think of leaving. We'll die here." With a winter approaching, and so little protection from the elements, they just might.

Balakot is an extreme example, but 12 months after Pakistan's worst natural disaster the plight of the earthquake's survivors remains parlous across the mountainous region.

Of more than three million left homeless, aid organisations believe that nearly two million are still living in temporary shelters. There are 40,000 living in tents in official camps, and tens of thousands more in unofficial ones. Landslips have bitten out great chunks from the roads and everywhere are patched tents, crude tarpaulin shelters and huts fashioned from corrugated iron on the roofs of wrecked buildings and on scraps of empty land.

There will be no quick relief. Work has started on only a small fraction of the 600,000 homes that need rebuilding. On Thursday President Musharraf pledged to complete the programme by late 2008, but earlier in the week the Asia Development Bank predicted that the reconstruction programme would take eight years.

The problem is not money, though General Musharraf also appealed for an additional $800 million (£ 426 million). In the months after the quake 76 countries pledged $6.4 billion in loans and grants -$1.2 billion more than Pakistan said it needed. The Government can also claim mitigating circumstances. The earthquake zone was the size of Switzerland, with terrain even more rugged. Its administrative and physical infrastructure, including 3,700 miles of road, was destroyed. Winter snows were followed by a baking summer and unusually heavy monsoon rains that triggered further landslides and destruction.

As an Oxfam official remarked, even wealthy America could not rebuild hurricane-ravaged New Orleans within a year, and by common consent the Pakistani Government did well to avert a widely predicted second wave of deaths from exposure and disease last winter. Helped by NGOs, it has set up temporary schools and hospitals that are better, in many cases, than those destroyed.

But aid officials also say the Government lacked any contingency plan to cope with the disaster, squandered the spring building season, and then compounded matters by adopting a reconstruction plan that offered each household 175,000 rupees (£ 1,540) provided their new homes were built of cement and steel -not timber and mud -to make them earthquake-resistant.

It was a good idea. But in practice the price of cement and steel rocketed, as did the cost of transporting them to remote areas, and the grants scarcely begin to cover the cost of building for traditional extended households. The Government refused to let NGOs build houses. There was a severe shortage of trained labour.

People had nothing with which to prove their ownership of property, and in some cases their land had vanished in landslides.

It is the landless who fill most of the 40 official camps around the town of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. One of them, al Hadith, is home to 250 families who have lived cheek by jowl for a year in leaky khaki tents pitched on baked mud. Most are there because their property literally vanished: across the valley is a vast grey rockface exposed when half a mountain simply collapsed in the earthquake, carrying their homes with it.

The "widows' corner" of the camp illustrated another problem with the rebuilding programme. There we found Nasima Bibi. She is 25, illiterate, and as a woman has little independent status in this deeply conservative society. Indeed before the quake many lived in purdah; their husbands were their only link to the outside world.

Clutching one young child, and with two others tugging at her clothes, she told in a whisper how her sleeping husband was crushed to death when their house collapsed. She is entitled to 100,000 rupees (£ 880) compensation for his death, and 175,000 rupees to rebuild her home but to apply to officials for those grants is to her inconceivable. "I am a woman," she said simply. Asked how she saw her future, she fell silent. She had no answer.

The occupants of camps such as alHadith now live six or eight to a tent. They have few possessions beyond rugs, blankets and cooking pots. They have a rudimentary electricity and water supply but no heating, no work and no hope. "It's terrible," said Muhammad Shefiq Kiyani, 52, a farmer who lost his wife and two sons and had his leg amputated below the knee. "I no longer see any aim in life."

They have to get through another winter, one unlikely to be as mild as the last.

The international relief effort has wound down and Western officials are sceptical about government promises to produce tents adequate for winter. The delay in rebuilding means hundreds of thousands remain vulnerable, Oxfam said this week.

The survivors are tough and resilient, but they are worried. "We'll do something to save our children, but I don't know what," said Muhammad Rafiq, 54, who shares a tent with his wife and eight surviving offspring. "It's a frightening time coming up."

* FINAL TOLL

7.6 magnitude

73,000 deaths (30,000 children)

15,000 bodies never found

70,000 injured

11,600 square miles, stricken area

600,000 houses and other buildings destroyed

3 million people left homeless

388 hospitals and clinics destroyed

6,200 schools and colleges destroyed or damaged

6.4 billion dollars international aid pledged

60 million pounds (third-largest) British appeal

MUSHARRAF REJECTS OXFAM’S CONCERN: $800M MORE NEEDED FOR RECONSTRUCTION
Dawn, Pakistan, October 6, 2006

ISLAMABAD, Oct 5: President Pervez Musharraf has lashed out at Oxfam for its statement that over 1.8 million survivors of last year’s devastating earthquake will spend another harsh winter in tents and makeshift homes.

“These doomsday predictors have said that 1.8 million people would be in tents this winter. It is unfortunate. How anyone can say this,” the president said at the first annual conference of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority on Thursday.

He also denied allegations of corruption by officials which, Oxfam had said, was compounding the miseries of survivors. But he admitted that some exploiters might be doing wrong at some level and said that the ‘immoral characters should be ignored.’

An exemplary system, he said, had been put in place that ensured transparency. Things, he added, were moving in the right direction.

Disputing the figures released by Oxfam, he said that 95 per cent of the displaced people had returned to homes and some 30,000 remained in tents.

President Musharraf appealed to the international community and philanthropists for an additional $800 million to foot the bill for increased cost of reconstruction of the quake-hit areas.

Eighty percent of the reconstruction work would be completed by 2,009.

It is estimated that the reconstruction will now cost $4.3 billion instead of earlier calculations of $3.7 billion made at the time of donors conference held last year after the earthquake that killed at least 73,000 people and left three million homeless in Azad Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province.

The international community had pledged $6.5 billion at the conference, part of which was to go to relief and rehabilitation. Additionally, Rs12 billion were received as private donations.

The president told an audience that included diplomats and representatives from multilateral lenders and aid agencies that the cost over-run had come from an increase in the number of houses to be reconstructed.

There has been an increase of 200,000 housing units to be reconstructed. Previous surveys had put the number of houses needing reconstruction at 400,000.

Joint assessments by Erra and international agencies, President Musharraf said, had put the total damage at $5.2 billion.

“Only with this additional $800 million can we meet the challenge of reconstructing health and education institutions and additional houses,” he said.

He promised to the donors that reconstruction of housing units would be completed by December 2,008 and their donations would be used judiciously and in a transparent manner.

The president said that the government would not fail the nation and survivors of the massive quake and vowed to provide better living standards to the survivors.

Responding to the ongoing debate about the total time to accomplish the reconstruction task, the president vowed that 80 per cent of the works would be completed by 2,009.

Those talking of longer periods, he said, were portraying negativism and denying Erra its credit. “If you are talking about constructing a $50 million university then it would certainly take longer,” he added.

PAKISTAN PREPARES WINTER CONTINGENCY PLAN IN QUAKE-HIT AREAS
Indo-Asian News Service, October 6, 2006

Islamabad, Oct 6 -- Pakistani Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) has prepared a contingency plan to protect earthquake survivors during the upcoming harsh winter.

According to an ERRA document, sector-wise reconstruction strategies had been finalised and reconstruction was gaining momentum in the quake-hit areas, Dawn reported Friday.

The document said that 30 percent of the total number of people affected by the earthquake had started reconstruction work on their damaged houses and 60 percent of them were complying with safety standards devised by the authority.

ERRA estimated that last year's quake had damaged 600,000 rural and 22,000 urban houses. Accounts for 600,000 beneficiaries had been opened in banks and post offices and Rs.30.2 billion (about $503.3 million) had been disbursed to 431,226 beneficiaries.

The Pakistan Army and Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) had assessed 579,689 rural houses and ERRA had developed an extensive database of these houses, according to the document.

The agency had set up 65 construction material hubs and 12 housing reconstruction centers besides providing training to 12,000 master trainers and 75,000 artisans and house owners.

According to ERRA documents, the master plans of Muzaffarabad and Bagh had been finalised while plans for Rawlakot and New Balakot were in final stages.

It had finalised a portfolio of 149 projects in Muzaffarabad and arranged $300 million for them.

A Rs.16.92 billion (about $282 million) livelihoods rehabilitation strategy had been finalised while 216,571 people had been enrolled for Rs.5 billion rupees (about $83.3 million) Cash Grants Programme launched in April. So far, Rs.2.8 billion (about $46.7 million) had been paid.

The document also mentioned an interim Rs.5.74 billion (about $95.7 million) ERRA-UN livelihoods support programme, covering 26 projects and 3 billion micro finance launched by Khushhali Bank.

It said schemes worth Rs.3 billion (about $50 million) covering agriculture, livelihood and skill development were being prepared.

EU URGES INTERNATIONAL DONORS TO CONTINUE AID FOR EARTHQUAKE-RAVAGED KASHMIR
the International Herald Tribune, October 6, 2006

BRUSSELS, Belgium: The European Union executive on Friday urged international donors to continue providing aid to Kashmir, one year after the region was ravaged by a massive earthquake.

About 80,000 people died in the Oct. 8, 2005, earthquake that struck mainly in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir and parts of North West Frontier Province. Many more people were injured, and 3.5 million were left homeless.

"More than 1 million individuals are still homeless and living in tents in the high mountains of Kashmir. The efforts must continue by all donors. We have to fight against forgetting these kinds of catastrophes," said European Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio.

The EU said it has provided €600 million (US$763 million) in aid, of which €171 million (US$217 million) was for humanitarian actions.

US, UN FLY AGAIN TO BRING AID TO QUAKE SURVIVORS IN PAKISTAN
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 6, 2006

The United States and United Nations are resuming their aid flights into Pakistan's earthquake zone ahead of the second winter that survivors there are facing since the disaster
a year ago.

The US military said Friday that its cargo planes have already begun to fly relief goods into Islamabad as part of its Operation Promise Keeping.

Chinook helicopters are standing by to ferry the goods, which include more than 10,000 corrugated sheet roofs, into the mountains to survivors of the October 8 quake before winter sets in, it said.

The United Nations also plans to deploy at least four helicopters. They are to deliver food and other aid primarily to remote areas from November to February, the world body said.

It added, however, that it has only two-thirds of the money needed for the 4.5-million-dollar mission.

News of the operations came immediately before Sunday's one-year anniversary of the quake, which killed more than 73,000 people in northern Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Another 1,300 people died in India-administered Kashmir.

The magnitude-7.6 earthquake left 3.5 million people homeless in Pakistan, and aid flights began two days after the disaster. Because of the massive influx of relief, a second wave of deaths that had been feared that first winter among the homeless was averted.

Today, however, 35,000 survivors remain living in tent camps, according to the United Nations.

US SENDS PRAYERS, PLEDGES CONTINUED AID A YEAR AFTER PAKISTAN QUAKE
Agence France Presse, October 6, 2006

The United States offered Friday its prayers and a continued pledge to help Pakistan rebuild a year after a devastating earthquake killed 74,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless in the Asian nation.

"We join the people of Pakistan during this month of Ramadan, as they mourn the tragic loss of so many innocent victims, and our thoughts and heartfelt prayers are with them at this time of remembrance," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.

The international aid group Oxfam said this week that a year after the October 8, 7.6 magnitude earthquake, 1.8 million people were still living in temporary shelters.

Their report followed criticism of the government of President Pervez Musharraf for not doing enough to rebuild since the quake.

Musharraf, a key US ally who met here with President George W. Bush last week, challenged the Oxfam figures Thursday during a meeting of the first annual conference of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority.

But he said Pakistan still needed an extra 800 million dollars from domestic and international donors for housing reconstruction in quake-hit areas.

Casey said Washington, which has pledged more than 200 million dollars in reconstruction aid over the next four years, remains committed to playing a major role in the rebuilding effort.

"As we join the people of Pakistan at this time of remembrance, we wish to reaffirm our commitment to working together towards a hopeful and prosperous future," he said.

He did not specifically refer to Musharraf's appeal for additional aid.

The US government already provided more than 240 million dollars in emergency assistance following the 2005 quake while the private sector contributed another 100 million dollars, Casey said.

QUAKE VICTIMS GIRD FOR WINTER: REBUILDING SLOW IN PAKISTAN, INDIA
By Matthew Pennington, Associated Press, October 6, 2006

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan -- After a powerful earthquake struck Pakistan and India a year ago, one of the biggest fears was for the more than 3 million newly homeless facing the onset of the Himalayan winter.

The cold proved milder than anticipated. But now another winter is at hand and reconstruction, constrained by rigorous new quake-proofing rules, has moved slowly. More than half the homeless are still living in tents or makeshift shacks, and aid agencies expect mountain dwellers to soon start pouring into lowland camps to escape the coming freeze.

After the magnitude 7.6 temblor of Oct. 8, 2005, which killed more than 80,000 people, a secondary crisis was averted by a huge, international emergency relief effort and unexpectedly mild weather.

Jan Vandermoortele, UN coordinator in Pakistan, believes conditions this winter will be ``manageable."

``The only worry that people have is how severe the winter will be," he said.

In the hard-hit Pakistani portion of Kashmir, several feet of snow blanket upland villages every year. Bronchitis becomes rife and potentially deadly among the young and elderly.

The task of rebuilding is daunting, even with $6.7 billion in aid pledges: more than 600,000 homes, 6,500 schools, and 800 clinics and hospitals were destroyed by the quake, as well as over 3,700 miles of roads.

``The damage is more than was initially assessed," said Altaf Saleem, chairman of the state Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority. ``Never in Pakistan's history has so much construction happened in such a compressed timeframe."

Shehad Shah and 15 relatives still live in his damaged home in Muzaffarabad, the wrecked capital of Pakistani Kashmir. The cracks in the wall, plugged by old cloth and loose bricks, have widened since the earthquake.

Nearby Domal Road ends in thin air, the asphalt and land beneath it having plunged into the Jehlum River 130 feet below.

``We're stranded here. We have no money to buy new land and build another house," said Shah.

Life in Muzaffarabad has assumed a degree of normality among partially cleared ruins.

Rubble and collapsed minarets no longer block the narrow alleys of Medina Market. Crudely repaired stores are well stocked and do a brisk business. Across the city, children attend class at schools set up in tents and prefabricated buildings.

But city parks and hillsides are crowded with displaced families living in shacks or under canvas, and people pray in ruined mosques. Families are waiting for compensation money and for the government to complete a city master plan and give the green light to rebuild.

Compensation claims and reconstruction are moving faster in rural areas where most quake victims live.

Officials say 90 percent of people have received more than half of the $3,000 payment to help them build new homes.

But the cash has come too slowly to beat the winter. Raja Mohammed Nasim Khan, minister of reconstruction for Pakistani Kashmir, said that only 27 percent of people in that region have started rebuilding, and only about 5 percent will have finished homes by the time snows come.

New regulations require homes to be rebuilt using cement and steel, but survivors say the price of materials has tripled since the quake and such materials are difficult to transport to the villages.

EARTHQUAKE CRISIS: ONE YEAR ON, PAKISTAN'S DESPERATE REFUGEES PRAY FOR ANOTHER MIRACLE: UP TO 1.8M SURVIVORS LIVING IN MAKESHIFT SHELTERS AS HIMALAYAN WINTER CLOSES IN
By Declan Walsh Muzaffarabad, The Guardian, London, October 6, 2006

Shelter is precious in the refugee camps along the rocky road north of Muzaffarabad, the battered capital of Pakistani Kashmir. Hardly an inch is vacant as tents, rickety shelters and half-destroyed houses jostle for space along a narrow strip of land between the steep mountains and a rushing, slate-blue river.

That matters not to Muhammad Rafiq, who loves his last buffalo so much he gave it a private tent. "It's important to keep the sun off its back," explained the farmer, gesturing to the animal standing imperiously in the shade, its fleshy chops dripping with water. "And anyway, my children like the milk."

But if there was anything funny about the scene it was lost on Mr Rafiq, his sense of humour dulled by a year of living rough. Last year's earthquake crushed his house, his livelihood and very nearly his leg, he said, pointing to a plastered limb that refuses to heal. The following winter was rough on his mother he said, indicating the wizened 95-year-old woman curled onto a bed beside him, coughing softly from a bad bout of tuberculosis.

Two months ago monsoon rains destroyed his makeshift home in the mountains, forcing him to take his family - and last buffalo - to this wretched, overcrowded camp on the edge of Muzaffarabad. Now all he cares about is going home - if only he knew where that was.

"The government says my house is in the 'red zone' so I can't live there any more," he sighed, raising his voice as a baby wailed nearby. "Nowhere to stay, nowhere to go - there is no beauty left in life any more, just frustration."

It is no small miracle that so many people survived the aftermath of last year's fearsome October 8 earthquake. A frantic, helicopter-driven emergency operation by Pakistani and foreign aid workers through last winter - combined with mercifully clement weather - staved off a much-feared second wave of deaths. But one year later tens of thousands of survivors are on the cusp of yet another perilous experience.

ONE YEAR AFTER EARTHQUAKE, 1.8M FACE ANOTHER BLEAK WINTER IN TENTS, Charities' slow progress attacked as president asks world for GBP425m
By Carolyn Churchill, The Herald, Glasgow,October 6, 2006

PAKISTAN'S President Pervez Musharraf yesterday appealed to the international aid community to give GBP425m to help rebuild communities devastated by the earthquake a year ago.

Speaking ahead of Sunday's first anniversary of the disaster that killed more than 73,000 people, he said the extra cash was vital because the number of new houses needed had been greatly underestimated.

Around 3.5 million people were left homeless by the earthquake, which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale, and yesterday the charity Oxfam said more than 1.8 million of those face spending a second winter in makeshift shelters and tents. It warned that the reconstruction scheme had been "slow and problematic" and many communities were not equipped to deal with the harsh conditions.

Another aid charity, Save the Children, said it could take seven years to rebuild the education system in affected areas of the country after 8000 schools were damaged and destroyed.

There are some areas where none of the demolished schools have been rebuilt, the charity said.

Save the Children said bureaucracy, a lack of commitment and insufficient funding had made school reconstruction extremely slow. In Muzaffarabad, one of the districts worst-affected by the earthquake, reconstruction has started at only one or two sites while in Bagh none of the previous 800 schools has been rebuilt.

Many other pupils are being taught in tents but the charity says the heat of summer and snows of winter mean this is not a viable solution.

It has called on the Pakistan government to help build more semi-permanent structures to replace the schools while new buildings are constructed.

Saima Anwer, Save the Children's education director in Pakistan, said: "Even after an emergency, every child has the right to a quality education. Despite the problems they face, children and teachers walk for hours through difficult terrain every morning to get to school.

"We think they deserve the same enthusiasm from the government to give them back a safe and conducive learning environment by stepping up the pace of rebuilding."

Mr Musharraf dismissed criticism that Pakistani authorities were working too slowly but, addressing a conference yesterday to update donors on progress in the past 12 months, he said: "I would urge anyone who I'm accessing in this address to donate more."

When the huge earthquake hit the Kashmir region on the India-Pakistan border, charities across the world united in their efforts to send humanitarian aid.

Scots were urged to dig deep and, through the Disasters Emergency Committee Scotland, raised GBP5.2m in addition to the thousands donated to smaller charities.

Habib Malik, of Islamic Relief Scotland, which is a member of DEC Scotland, said: "The generosity of Scots was unbelievable. People were queuing up in charity shops waiting for their turn to donate money at the counter.

"Many Pakistanis in Scotland were directly or indirectly affected so there was a local angle to it. The support was amazing."

The charity immediately supplied machinery to clear the roads and allow aid agencies to reach some of the more remote areas. It distributed 23,000 shelters, set up 5000 sanitation facilities and provided clothing for 5000 families.

However, in the longer term, a different kind of help is needed and Islamic Relief Scotland provided maize and cattle to benefit 165,000 people in several areas, including Forward Kahuta, Bagh and Neelum Valley.

For thousands of families, it has made a very real impact and Mr Malik said he was confident their situation was now improving, as a result of funds raised in Scotland.

The charity Glasgow the Caring City, working alongside its partners in other countries, raised GBP4m for supplies which were sent to the region. It also committed itself to building four schools and in July founder, the Rev Neil Galbraith, visited Saran to see the first stone being laid.

However, he claims that more needs to be done to make a lasting impact. "As a society, we did not do enough. In the 10 years that I have been doing this I have never seen so much devastation."

Other smaller charities also offered shelter, food and sanitation before they began the longer-term projects of helping those affected rebuild their lives.

Edinburgh Direct Aid has used the GBP80,000 in donations it was given to provide winter shelters, wood-burning stoves, livestock and a medical clinic.

Officials from DEC Scotland say that the money raised in Scotland did save lives. Chairman Gavin McLellan said: "It prevented the spread of diseases which would have led to more loss of life, it got people shelter and clothing and helped them to rebuild their lives."

Meanwhile, it was revealed yesterday that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will visit Pakistan on a week-long tour at the end of this month.

Charles and Camilla will travel to the capital, Islamabad, as well as areas devastated by the earthquake. It will be the first time both the prince and the duchess have visited the country.

VULNERABLE
The Guardian, London, October 6, 2006

Of the 400,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the earthquake only 17% have been rebuilt, according to to the Pakistan government. Meanwhile the harsh Himalayan winter is closing in - the scorching summer temperatures are slowly sliding towards the days of 10-foot-deep drifts and bone-chilling nights. Ominously, the first snows have already dusted the highest peaks, weeks earlier than normal.

Some 66,000 families are living in makeshift shelters, according to the Red Cross; Oxfam puts the number in tents and rough shelters as high as 1.8 million. Widows, the disabled and those living in high mountain villages are among the most vulnerable groups. "You can't imagine what last winter was like," said Safia Bibi, a widow who still weeps when she remembers how her husband was crushed to death under a shop. "I had to clutch my children to my chest to keep them warm. It was hell."

Yesterday was a warm, cheery morning in Muzaffarabad. Children in pressed uniforms walked to school, men meandered into the bazaar, women started their chores - much the same scene as preceded the magnitude 7.8 tremor that rippled across north-eastern Pakistan and a corner of India, tipping villages onto valley floors, crushing houses like tin cans and killing 73,000 people.

The multi-billion pound Pakistani-international aid effort has been widely praised for its achievements, but the final estimation is far from complete. Most rubble has been swept from the streets and landslides have been cleared, but under the surface lies a highly complex and problematic emergency. Public health remains precarious because of broken underground sewage channels and lost water sources. The weather is unpredictable as ever. Where the winter was blessed, last summer was a curse. Heavier than expected monsoon rains sent sheets of rubble, mud and water tumbling onto roads and camps filled with refugees. At least 24 people died and new roads, water schemes and emergency works were washed away.

Pakistan's government has been ambitious in its rebuilding plans, perhaps too much so. Compensation payments to hundreds of thousands of homeless families have been staggered in the hope of forcing them to rebuild their houses quickly. But a host of problems have conspired against the plan - bureaucratic delays, poor communication, the lack of land deeds and the sheer scale of the challenge.

"It was never going to be easy," said Shaheen Chughtai of Oxfam. "You have to remember it took Japan years to rebuild 140,000 homes after the Kobe earthquake in 1995. Pakistan is looking at rebuilding at least 450,000 homes but without the same wealth, experience, expertise or institutions."

Balakot, a Frontier Province town that was razed to the ground, was declared a "red zone" and unfit for human habitation. But plans to move it to a safer location have been frozen for months.

President Pervez Musharraf has also courted controversy in his approach. Yesterday he asked foreign donors for funds on top of the $6.7bn (£4.5bn) already pledged - days after he met George Bush to negotiate the purchase of a fleet of F-16 fighter jets worth billions of pounds. Mr Musharraf has also refused to back down on his support for the Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

ERRA PREPARES WINTER CONTINGENCY PLAN
By Iftikhar A. Khan, Dawn, Pakistan, October 5, 2006

The Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) has prepared a contingency plan to protect earthquake survivors during the upcoming harsh winter.

According to an Erra document, sector-wise reconstruction strategies had been finalised and reconstruction was gaining momentum in the quake-hit areas.

The document claimed that 30 per cent of the total number of people affected by the earthquake had started reconstruction and 60 per cent of them were complying with safety standards devised by the authority. But according to UK-based aid agency Oxfam, only 17 per cent of the 450,000 affected households had begun building permanent homes.

Erra estimated that last year’s quake had damaged 600,000 rural and 22,000 urban houses. Accounts for 600,000 beneficiaries had been opened in banks and post offices and Rs30.2 billion disbursed to 431,226 beneficiaries.

The Pakistan Army and Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) had assessed 579,689 rural houses and Erra had developed a database of damaged rural houses. A decentralised grievance redressal system was also put in place by Erra and it had so far addressed 110,00 complaints.

The agency had set up 65 construction material hubs and 12 housing reconstruction centres besides providing training to 12,000 master trainers and 75,000 artisans and house owners.

According to Erra documents, masterplans of Muzaffarabad and Bagh had been finalised while plans for Rawlakot and New Balakot were in final stages.

It had finalised a portfolio of 149 projects in Muzaffarabad and arranged $ 300 million for them.

A Rs16.92 billion livelihoods rehabilitation strategy had been finalized while 216,571 people had been enrolled for Rs5 billion Cash Grants Programme launched in April. So far, Rs 2.8 billion had been paid.

The document also mentioned an interim Rs5.74 billion Erra-UN livelihoods support programme, covering 26 projects and Rs3 billion micro finance launched by Khushhali bank. It said schemes worth Rs3 billion covering agriculture, livelihood, skill development sectors were being prepared and a survey for reconstruction of livelihoods sector departments being carried out and their designs were being finalised.

In education sector, Erra said, all education facilities had been made functional through temporary structures. It said 1,574 facilities were to be reconstructed in 2006-07, including 535 by sponsors and 298 by donors.

QUAKE SURVIVORS AT RISK, WARNS OXFAM PAKISTAN RECONSTRUCTION
By Farhan Bokhari, Financial Times, October 4, 2006

At least 1.8m people who survived last year's devastating earthquake in Pakistan are at risk as they face an early onset of winter in makeshift shelters and tents, Oxfam says in a report to be published today.

Last October's quake, Pakistan's worst natural disaster, left more than 73,000 people dead and about 3.5m homeless. There were widespread fears for survivors last year, as sub-zero temperatures approached in the Himalayan region affected, but Pakistan had an unusually mild winter.

This year, aid workers fear, the survivors may be less fortunate. "With snow already falling, this winter seems to have arrived early," said Oxfam's Farhana Faruqi Stocker.

Oxfam reports that despite the rebuilding work that has been under way, many survivors remain vulnerable. "The progress of recovery has been patchy, and the pace of construction of housing and infrastructure has been slow," it says. Pakistan has been promised Dollars 6.5bn in international assistance for reconstruction. Pakistani officials say up to Dollars 3bn has been delivered so far.

But Oxfam says "a difficult mountainous terrain, poor infrastructure, extreme weather conditions, problems with disseminating public information, as well as gaps in support for some vulnerable groups", has hindered reconstruction.

According to the report, Pakistan authorities say only 17 per cent of the 450,000 affected households have started to rebuild. Oxfam says about 80 per cent of the remaining families, or 1.8m people, are still living in temporary shelters, with the rest staying with friends and relatives.

More than 40,000 people are known to be in tents in official camps. Thousands of others are believed to be in unofficial camps and tents close to their home villages.

"Besides materials that will strengthen their homes . . . people in temporary shelter in rural and mountain areas need sustained access to safe heating and other essential items," said Ms Stocker.

Those in remote areas also remained at risk because routes to access vital supplies of food, fuel andmedicine are often blocked by winter snow and landslides.

However, Jan Vandermoortele, the UN's chief co-ordinator in Pakistan, said that compared with other major disasters, progress in Pakistan "is above average, way beyond where other countries were a year later".

"A lot of work needs to be done but there are achievements. There are fewer tents (for survivors) but they do exist," he said.

A western ambassador who toured the region last week said the situation remained potentially serious. "This is an unpredictable situation. Rather than congratulating ourselves on success, we should be working to prevent a catastrophe if it so happens."

A YEAR AFTER QUAKE, MANY IN PAKISTAN LACK SHELTER
The Seattle Times, October 4, 2006

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan. Nearly 400,000 people face a second winter without permanent shelter following last year's earthquake in the mountains and valleys of northern Pakistan, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Tuesda..

The 7.6 magnitude earthquake on Oct. 8, 2005, killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan and 1,500 in Indian Kashmir, and rendered more than 3 million destitute.

"One year after, it is estimated that around 66,000 families are still without permanent shelter, while recent landslides and flooding have also left many quake survivors in a precarious position," the federation said in a statement.

Aid agencies reckon that the average family in Pakistani Kashmir and North West Frontier Province has around six members.

Before last winter, relief agencies had feared a second wave of deaths from cold and sickness among survivors living in makeshift shelters and unsanitary camps, but the weather was mercifully mild.

Relief agencies fear the winter won't be as kind for a second year running.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and their local affiliate are planning to run support activities for a million people until at least 2008, but need more funds.

QUAKE STILL BEING FELT
The Daily Telegraph, Australia, October 5, 2006

ISLAMABAD: Tens of thousands of survivors of the October 2005 earthquake are still living in makeshift shelters as winter begins, aid groups said yesterday.

More than 40,000 people are in refugee camps in Pakistani Kashmir and the Northwest Province, the states most affected by the quake, Oxfam said.

The British Red Cross estimates 66,000 families lack permanent housing and is working with the Red Crescent to provide 13,500 temporary shelters.

The Red Cross said the Pakistani Government was working on a plan to reconstruct most of the homes destroyed by the earthquake. It said the majority of the people affected by it had returned to their villages and begun rebuilding.

RAMADAN AMID RUINS
The Straits Times, Singapore, October 2, 2006

Residents of Muzaffarabad offering Ramadan prayers in their damaged mosque, among the many buildings hit by an earthquake that ravaged western Pakistan and Kashmir last year. Up to 60,000 survivors are still living in tents. Aid agencies are preparing camps for 20,000 to 30,000 people who are expected to descend from the mountains in search of shelter during the winter. The United Nations says it will take the region 10 years to recover from the 7.6-magnitude quake, which left 3.5 million people homeless.

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CDGK PLANS LOW-COST HOUSING PROJECT IN TAYSIR TOWN
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CHEAP, SAFE HOUSE DESIGNED FOR QUAKE-PRONE AREAS
By Sher Baz Khan, DAWN Reporter, February 4, 2006

PAKISTAN OBSERVES 1st EARTHQUAKE ANNIVERSARY: News Summary from around the World

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THE EARTHQUAKE -- ONE YEAR AFTER: NEWS SUMMARY

LOW COST HOUSING IN PAKISTAN, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia