PESHAWAR: Sixty-year-old Mohammad Hakim, a resident of Shamshi Khan, Lower Dir, was happy after receiving Rs200,000 from the government to rebuild his home damaged in the recent earthquake, but soon he realised that the amount was too little for the job.

“With this amount I can’t remove even the debris of my home,” said Mr Hakim, whose six-room mud house caved in when the earthquake shook Pakistan, Afghanistan and India on Oct 26.

“Can the government provide us a plan or design to build a single room with this amount? I can either use mud and stone to rebuild my home or borrow money to construct a quake-proof structure,” he said.

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According to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, the quake had damaged or destroyed 92,816 houses in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced that the federal and KP governments would jointly give Rs 200,000 for rebuilding a destroyed home and Rs100,000 for a partially damaged one.

“Keeping in view the cost of construction material and labour, the compensation being paid for building a house is like throwing a pinch of salt into the ocean,” said Wali Yousafzai, a civil engineer. The government should be realistic because even repair of a damaged home was not possible in this amount, he added.

“You have to remove the entire structure if a building is damaged partially,” he said, advising the government to first carry out a survey of affected buildings before paying compensation.

After the 2005 earthquake, the government had paid Rs 200,000 for reconstruction of a home when the US dollar was worth about Rs65, but now the greenback fetches Rs106.

Mr Hakim is thinking about constructing an earthquake-proof structure, but he doesn’t have know-how about it.

Experts believe that the government has preferred old-fashioned steps, instead of taking disaster risk management measures, including adopting new building codes and constructing quake-proof houses.

“Before paying the compensation the government should have bound the affected people to follow building codes in reconstruction of their houses,” said Mushtaq Ahmad Jan, Director of the Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management, University of Peshawar.

He said the building codes for seismic areas, 2007, and the National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy, 2013, had been framed in order to reduce losses of life and property.

“Ultimately people residing in seismic zones will have to adopt building codes and construct quake-proof houses,” he said, “In the post-quake scenario life in mud houses in seismic zones is like staying in a graveyard.”

Pakistan is prone to multiple natural disasters because of its geophysical conditions and climatic changes. Kashmir, Gilgit, Chitral, Dir and Quetta lie in a very high hazard zone, Balakot, Saidu Sharif and Malakand in high hazard, while Peshawar and its surrounding areas, Kohat and parts of the tribal areas are in a moderate zone.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department has recorded 132 earthquakes from Sept 30 to Oct 30.

After the 2005 earthquake, the federal government had worked out a strategy for disaster risk reduction.

Disaster management authorities were set up at the federal and provincial levels. The federal government, in consultation with the provinces, had prepared building codes for seismic areas in 2007.

The building codes had provided all methods for constructing earthquake-proof low-cost houses, but the codes and bylaws are hardly followed both in public and private sectors.

The government had established the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, which apart from other activities was mandated to ensure implementation of building codes in private and government sectors.

The authority had worked out a mechanism for payment of compensation so as to force people to rebuild their homes according to the building codes. “The authority properly checked construction of houses and made payment in three installments to ensure that building codes are followed,” said Nisar Ahmad, a resident of Mansehra.

“People will have to build a structure which can withstand an earthquake of nine magnitude keeping in view seismic activities in our region, especially in Chitral district,” suggested Mushtaq Ahmad Jan.

Despite the fact that Pakistan is prone to natural calamities, the government agencies have failed to ensure implementation of building codes and guidelines. Bylaws are ignored in construction of high rises buildings and even in construction of schools and houses.

The recent earthquake had damaged about 500 schools. But Works and Services Department’s secretary Asif Khan claimed that building codes designed by the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, were followed in construction of buildings and as a result of that public sector buildings largely remained safe in the last month’s high-intensity tremor.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2015