ISLAMABAD, Nov 7: The death toll from the earthquake has reached 86,000, about 100,000 people have so far been reported injured and more than 3.5 million people have been affected, says a damage assessment report.
The draft report compiled jointly by the international donor agencies was discussed here on Monday at a meeting presided over by adviser to the prime minister on finance and revenue Dr Salman Shah.
In view of the continuous rise in all estimates of damage including deaths, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has convened another meeting on Nov 9 to finalize a consolidated position for presentation to the scheduled Nov 19 international donors’ conference in Islamabad, the sources said. The prime minister of Azad Kashmir and NWFP chief minister would also attend the meeting.
The joint assessment teams of the World Bank and the ADB have also estimated that devastation in AJK was much more than the NWFP. A total of 7,197 educational institutions have been destroyed and about 3,837-kilometre roads have been damaged in Azad Kashmir and NWFP.
Of this, 2,366-km in AJK and 1,471-km roads in NWFP were damaged while 3,680 educational institutions in AJK and 3,517 in NWFP were destroyed. These educational institutions included primary, middle and high schools.
The meeting decided that damages to universities and colleges in AJK and NWFP, which are not part of this draft report, should also be included in the final report.
The meeting, however, could not finalize estimates about the reconstruction cost owing to a wide difference among the local and foreign agencies about the per sq. feet reconstruction cost.
When approached for comments on difference of cost estimates, a senior government official said, it depended whether one wanted to build houses or shanties and added this would be finally sorted at the president and the prime minister level.
The total reconstruction cost estimated by the planning commission stood at around $10-12 billion while the World Bank and the ADB estimates ranged between three to four billion dollars.
Similarly, reconstruction cost estimated by the World Bank and the ADB ranged between Rs600-1200 per sq. feet compared to much higher estimates of the planning commission.
Discussing the data on housing requirement and cost of reconstruction per sq. feet, the meeting decided that the representatives of AJK and the NWFP governments should be present in the Nov 9 meeting to reconcile with the data available with the assessment team so as to incorporate the correct data about damage of housing units and cost of reconstruction in the final report to be presented to the donors conference on Nov 19, 2005.
Dr Salman Shah suggested that the cost of reconstruction per sq feet of housing units and schools should be realistic.
The damage assessment teams that have compiled these figures comprised representatives from World Bank, ADB, DFID-UK, USAID, UNDP and JBIC-Japan. The report covers infrastructure sector covering housing, transport, health and education.
