DAVOS (Switzerland), Jan 26: President Pervez Musharraf pledged on Thursday to monitor personally reconstruction of areas devastated by the Oct 8 earthquake and thanked the world for $6.2 billion worth of aid pledges.

President Musharraf told leaders and business chiefs at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that the pledges from an international donor conference had even outstripped the estimated $5.2 billion of damage from the quake.

“We have already successfully implemented the relief part. We need to successfully implement the reconstruction and rehabilitation,” he said, and added: “I will keep monitoring that and going down myself to make sure that this is being done.”

More than 74,000 people were killed and about three million made homeless by the earthquake in northern Pakistan, one of the worst disasters in the country’s 57-year history.

President Musharraf said the quake which devastated Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir also showed the importance of a leader being visible and in touch.

“The basic ingredient of a leader is that he should never panic, whatever the circumstances,” the president said and added: “No nation, no leader, can be expected to be fully prepared to meet major natural disasters.”

“It’s extremely important that the leader does not sit back. He must reach out to the people immediately,” President Musharraf said.

He said he had flown to the quake-hit region the morning after the shocks, to provide “some solace that I am with them. I think this went a long way to giving hope to the people”.

Rescue operations lasted for around a month, along with long-term relief work and, eventually, the start of the reconstruction and rehabilitation phase.

President Musharraf said money was given to people who had lost relatives or houses, or who had been injured. Cash was also directed so inhabitants could rebuild their own homes, this time making them quake-proof as far as possible.

“Within two months economic and business activity resumed.”—Agencies