MANSEHRA, Oct 7: More than 17,000 people perished as buildings and trees crumbled in Balakot like a house of cards on the morning of October 8, 2005 when a devastating earthquake hit the region.

Having lost their loved ones and livelihood, the survivors have received a meagre assistance despite lapse of five years. They are still living in miserable condition in their small makeshift shelter homes.

“Go away, I would not give you the interview, its merely a drama as we have been giving interviews to media and appealing the government to address our problems for the last five years but neither the government nor media could address our miseries,” Shamim Akhtar reprimanded journalists when they reached at her house in Balakot to talk to her.

She had lost her young daughter in the Oct 8 earthquake. Her young son Aqash Nizami, who was student of grade five, was still missing. The boy was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed school and airlifted to hospital from where he went missing.

Ms Akhtar is not the only survivor, who is still haunted by the traumas of the great tragedy, but about 5,000 families of Balakot are also suffering ordeals even after five years.

The survivors of Balakot, which was turned into ruins by the earthquake, are still without basic amenities and living in small shelters in highly unhygienic environment.

The hardships and agonies of the survivors of this city were enhanced to intolerance when the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (Erra) on recommendations of foreign seismologists and geologists, who declared Balakot as highly vulnerable for more earthquakes of higher intensity than that of Oct 8, imposed a ban on concrete construction.

Fatima Bibi, also lives in a makeshift shelter along with his seven-member family, said that her family was still reeling under the aftershocks of tragedy even after five years. “We are living in these small makeshift shelters like birds in cages,” she said.

She said that owing to overcrowding and unhygienic conditions epidemics were spreading and the worst hit were children and aged people.

“I have been listening for last many years that survivors of Balakot will be allotted plots at Bakrial to establish New Balakot City but it still seems a far cry,” she added.

Mohammad Khalid, another survivor, said that neither the past nor present government was sincere to address even the basic problems of the affected people.

He said if the shelters, gifted by Saudi government, were removed from Balakot the reality of the tall claims of government and Erra would be exposed. “The water and electricity system of the city couldn't be restored as yet owing to red-zone status of the city,” he said.

In May, 2007 the then president Pervez Musharraf inaugurated the New Balakot City at Bakrial with an estimated cost of Rs12 billion to settle the survivors of Balakot.

But the fate of this project still seems in doldrums as the work, which was suspended last year after a man was killed in clashes between police and locals, was still in shambles and couldn't be restarted as yet except the ground breaking of a mosque.

The project director of New Balakot City, Ziaul Haq, told this scribe that the dispute with landowners and residents of Balakot had been settled now and first phase of the project would be completed in 2011.

He said that just after the fifth anniversary of October 8, 2005 earthquake the allotment letters of 700 plots would be delivered to the landowners and residents.

It is high time that both landowners and Erra should resolve their all outstanding issues once for all to complete the mega housing project to address the miseries of survivors of Balakot.

The New Balakot City project, according to its earlier schedule, would be completed in year 2013 and it would be second planed city in the country after the capital, Islamabad.