Disaster Time
Last Saturday catastrophe came to Pakistan, the country was not prepared for it! Calamities always come as an unpleasant surprise. At 8.55 am on Saturday Oct 8, 2005 the region from Kabul in the west to New Delhi in the east was severely rocked. Cities as far away as Dhaka felt some tremors, the shocks went on uptil 9:05 am. Epicentered 95 kms northeast of Islamabad, the most powerful earthquake to hit this region in a 100 years was recorded at 7.6 on the Richter Scale, the main focus of death and destruction targetting northern Pakistan in a wide swath from Peshawar to Azad Kashmir. Media attention riveted the first morning on rescue efforts directed at the two collapsed blocks of “Margalla Towers” in Islamabad’s posh F-10 sector, diverting attention from the massive human and material devastation in Azad Kashmir, Kaghan and Kohistan valleys till hours later. With electricity and telephones lines down reports about a greater disaster in the mountains came in patches, e.g. 30% houses collapsed in Mansehra, 60% in Muzaffarabad, 80% in Rawalakot and Balakot etc, entire villages perched on the hillsides disappearing in mudslides. In the next 24 hours 40 aftershocks (of which only 17-18 were perceptible) added to the panic.
A Half Year Scorecard
For those fed up with the “civilian coup” that saw Asif Zardari virtually take over the affairs of governance in lieu of his wife, Ms Benazir Bhutto, great expectations are vested in the success of Mian Sahib, who came to office with the largest mandate, seat-wise, in this nation’s democratic history. These mainly centre around sound governance, the country having been reduced into economic apocalypse by acts of both commission and omission. Given the limitations of our leaders in matters of governance, expectation as to radical change is a pipedream that we must now grow out of hoping and longing for, unless we are masochists who revel in our frustration because that’s all we are likely to get. Public memory being notoriously short, perception usually overwhelms reality.