IRIN
PAKISTAN: Serious water shortage hits quake town
3 October 2006


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United 
Nations]

BALAKOT, 3 October (IRIN) - Some 20,000 people in the town of Balakot, 
which was badly devastated in last October's 7.6 magnitude earthquake, 
have been facing a severe shortage of clean water for the last month, 
according to local authorities.

But resource-constrained local authorities are helpless to resolve the 
problem of providing water to the population of the town, located 200 km 
north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, and are looking for external 
donor support, officials said on Monday.

"It is true that the area has been facing a persistent water shortage 
since the rainy season ended in August. We are delivering one water 
tanker daily for the town's population, but that's insufficient. 
Nevertheless, we do not have enough financial resources to increase this 
supply," Tila Muhammad, municipal administrator of the area, told IRIN 
from Balakot.

The head of the Mansehra office of the United Nations Children's Fund 
(UNICEF) agreed: "There is a water shortage and people have to get water 
from quite a distance if they are unable to get it from the municipal 
authority's water tanker," Al Haji Bah said.

Balakot, a picturesque, hilly town in the Mansehra district of North 
West Frontier Province (NWFP), was almost totally destroyed by the 
massive 8 October earthquake that ripped through Pakistani-administered 
Kashmir and NWFP.

To meet the immediate water needs of the population after the 
earthquake, several humanitarian agencies started supplying drinking 
water from tankers and installed infiltration plants, which remained 
operational till the end of the earthquake relief phase.

Two water-supply schemes, which had been rehabilitated to meet the needs 
of the population of Balakot, were washed away by heavy monsoon flooding 
in August this year.

Since then, the local authorities have been stretched to meet the needs 
of the local community. "We have few resources now. It costs us some 
3,000 rupees [US $50] per day to operate one 30,000-litre tanker," 
Muhammad said.

In early April, the Pakistani government declared an area of 600 ha in 
and around Balakot as a 'Red Zone' following seismic studies in the 
region that declared it unsafe and likely to be subject to further 
earthquakes.

As a result, the town is to be abandoned and rebuilt somewhere safer. 
However, the relocation will take at least three years, according to 
officials at the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction 
Authorities (ERRA).

"Since the area has been declared a 'Red Zone', nobody is working to 
install any water-supply scheme as such - the town needs instant 
transitional arrangements," said Muhammad Idrees Khan, manager of 
Oxfam's water-supply rehabilitation programme in Mansehra district of 
NWFP.


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