MUZAFFARABAD lies at the confluence of the Jhelum and Neelum rivers, in the north of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and very close to the quake's epicentre. Located about 138 km from Islamabad, the city is named after Sultan Muzaffar Khan, chief of the Bomba dynasty (circa 1652). Post-1947 it emerged as the seat of government and the centre of commerce on the Pakistani side of Kashmir.
Until disaster struck on the morning of October 8, Muzaffarabad was a bustling city with more than 200,000 people. It had become the first port of call for Kashmiris travelling from across the Line of Control (LoC) on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus that resumed service last April after a gap of 58 years. With the earthquake gobbling up the entire 60 km stretch from Muzaffarabad to Chakhoti on the LoC, the future of the service that connects Kashmiris on both sides is uncertain.
But, for the beleaguered people, survival is the foremost issue on their minds. All roads to and from the city are closed, except the one linking it to Islamabad via Abbottabad. The quake is estimated to have turned 80 per cent of the city's buildings and houses to dust, killing nearly 40,000 of its citizens. Its expanse strewn with rubble and bodies and its air thick with a foul smell, this once lofty 345 year-old city is now flattened to the ground.
Secretariats and official residences of the President and the Prime Minister and the headquarters of Pakistan Television and Radio and Pakistan Telecommunications Corporation Limited have been damaged. Important facilities such as the 400-bed Combined Military Hospital, the local university, local secretariat, central jail, banks, hotels, colleges and schools lie in ruins. In the absence of hospitals, electricity, food and running water, the city administration has come to a standstill.
"I am the Prime Minister of a graveyard," POK Prime Minister Sikandar Hayat Khan told mediapersons who met him outside a tent pitched in the gardens of his house, where he has been staying since the disaster struck. There is not a single household in the city which has escaped the fury of nature.
Relief efforts a week following the quake have scarcely made a difference. Several parts of the city remain without aid, despite government claims to the contrary. Injured, exhausted, hungry and angry, the residents do not mince words in airing their grievances to the media and have resorted to looting and disrupting aid distribution. Incessant rain and the onset of winter have further affected relief efforts.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on October 15 in Islamabad that reconstruction of the quake-affected areas may take five years. But those present closer to the scene of devastation think otherwise. Daily Dawn reported a senior official of POK Planning Department in Muzaffarabad as saying that it would be "impossible" to revive the city in the next 40 years. He said that it would be "economically more prudent and cost effective" to set up the capital at a new place because the removal of debris alone would cost a lot owing to the congestion in the ruined city.
Usman Qazi, a consultant with an Islamabad-based non-governmental organisation, said: "According to conservative estimates, at least one-third of the city's population either perished or suffered serious injuries on October 8. Some others who have their relatives working in Europe, fled to different parts of Pakistan. The remaining wait desperately for a roof over their head and a square meal a day. It will be harsh winter there in a week's time. The clock is ticking and unless aid is reached on a war-footing, it might be too late."
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