Life after the earthquake in Muzaffarabad.

By Associated press. 4/10/06

Life in earthquake areas has assumed a degree of normality among partially cleared ruins.

Rubble and collapsed minarets no longer block the narrow alleys of Medina Market. Crudely repaired stores are well stocked and do a brisk business. Across the city, children attend class at schools set up in tents and prefabricated buildings.

But the city parks and hillsides are crowded with displaced families living in shacks or under canvas, and people pray in ruined mosques. Families are waiting for compensation money and for the government to complete a city master plan and give the green light to rebuild.

Compensation claims and reconstruction are moving faster in rural areas where most quake victims live. Officials say 90 percent of people have received more than half of the $3,000 payment to help them build new homes.

But the cash has come too slowly to beat the winter. Raja Mohammed Nasim Khan, minister of reconstruction for Pakistani Kashmir, said that only 27 percent of people in that region have started rebuilding, and only about 5 percent would have finished homes by the time snows come.

Aurangzeb Abassi is among hundreds of villagers living in temporary shelters of bricks, corrugated iron and wood - often next to the concrete foundations of half-built homes.

Every other day Abassi travels 15 miles by bus to government headquarters in Muzaffarabad, hoping to press his claim for compensation money. He gets in line, his number written  in black marker pen on his left hand. It's 5 a.m. and he's no. 62.

"Instead of bowing our heads in front of these officials, it would be better if we bow our head to God. Then we might get something back," he said.

The new regulations require homes to be rebuilt using cement and steel, but survivors say the price of materials has tripled since the quake and are difficult to transport to remote villages.

Vandermoortele the UN Coordinator in Pakistan said the rules "erred on the side of being scientifically rigorous" rather than affordable. Oxfam, the British-based relief agency, said they "raised costs without guaranteeing housing that was safer than timber-based homes."

The rules were laid down by the government reconstruction agency on advice from a local engineering consulting firm and to meet requirements of the World Bank, the main donor for house reconstruction. The agency's Saleem said the regulations will be eased to let villagers use timber frames on concrete foundations in the most inaccessible locations.

Shehad Shah and 15 relatives still live in his damaged home in Muzaffarabad, the wrecked capital of Pakistani Kashmir. The cracks in the wall, plugged by old cloth and loose bricks, have widened since the earthquake.

Nearby Domal Road ends in thin air, the asphalt and land beneath it having plunged into the rushing Jehlum River 130 feet below.

"We're stranded here. We have no money to buy new land and build another house," said Shah, 29.