October 8 unforgettable day in history of Pakistan

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 07 (APP): October 8, 2005, is a day of horrible memories for the people of Pakistan especially for the residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammu and Kashmir where the earth quack of 7.6 magnitudes shakes the calmness and tranquility of the serene north of Pakistan, brought anguish and woes to the lives of over 3.5 million souls.
The earthquake caused massive loss of precious lives as well as livelihood to the victims, while dipping all essential facilities and infrastructure to dust and debris.
It affected over 4,000 villages and killed more than 73,000 people. Around 600,000 houses were smashed and 3.3 million people rendered homeless.
The Government and people of Pakistan as well as the international community responded in an unprecedented manner to this tragic calamity.
On the basis of an exercise on “Damages and Needs Assessment”, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank reported at the Donors’ Conference held on 19th November 2005, that $5.2 billion were required for earthquake relief, early recovery and reconstruction in KP and AJK.
The relentless efforts of the nation, culminated in successful completion of relief and recovery phase that was followed by reconstruction and rehabilitation activities, which are still going on.

The Government of Pakistan established the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) on October 24, 2005 aimed to take up the mammoth task of rebuilding in the earthquake affected regions spread over 30,000 square kilometers of nine districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and AJ&K.
ERRA’s prime task is to strategize and approve projects together with the provision of funds to SERRA and PERRA to undertake the reconstruction and rehabilitation works in their respective areas.
The idea behind the creation of ERRA was to bring all efforts and activities, pertaining to post disaster damage assessment, reconstruction and rehabilitation in the affected areas under one umbrella, with a view to providing a fast track and seismically safe reconstruction regimes and solutions.

ERRA has intervened in 12 different sectors, 3 cross-cutting programmes, and is required to reconstruct over 13,000 projects, (at a cost of over US $ 5 billion) located over more than 30,000 esq. of nine districts of AJ&K and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
ERRA has planned 14,705 development projects for the affected areas among which 6,963 projects were for KPK while 7,742 projects for AJ&K.
Among these 10,439 projects are completed, 2,624 are under construction while 1,642 yet not started,
Due to the consisted efforts and commitment of Government and ERRA these areas are now moving ahead towards development and prosperity and we hope that the future of these areas is much more developed and prosperous.
APP/ Saeeda