Pakistan Earthquake 2005

On October 8th 2005 at 3:50 UTC, an earthquake took place in North Pakistan. It registered a magnitude of 7.6 on the moment magnitude scale. The epicenter was situated 100 kilometer at north-northeast of Islamabad.

The earthquake caused lot of damage in North Pakistan, North India and Afghanistan. The earthquake was felt till in Delhi, Punjab, and Kasjmir. More than 85.000 people died in Pakistan and 1360 people died in India. Even much more people got injured and lost all their possessions and homes. The damage is estimated at 5 billion dollar.

Winter

After the earthquake, winter fell in. A lot of people had to survive in tents during the Himalaya-winter. Refugee camps were build, but help to the people of Pakistan started very slow. After more than a month passed by, the International Community promised 5,8 billion dollar to Pakistan: more than they had asked for. The temporary help stadium in Pakistan took a long time. The area was difficult to reach and more than 3 million people needed urgent shelter.

Help

It took a long time before help was offered to Pakistan. Roads were badly accessible and first needed to be cleared with heavy equipment. Finally there were refugee camps build. At some places people build their own camps. In these camps people got the availability of:

food
shelter
fluent water
education

Current situation in Pakistan

At the moment, 100.000 refugees still live in the camps. A lot of people are afraid to go back; they are afraid that there will be no food, water and work. These necessities were guaranteed in the camps. Some families have even more facilities in the camps than they had at home. Even though the government wants that everybody returns to her of his villages. The citizens are needed there for the rebuilding.

NABUUR and the Pakistan Earthquake

If you know of a community that would welcome the assistance of a group of online volunteer to rebuild their community after the earthquake please visit these pages:

More information:

NABUUR.com