THE DEVASTATION wrought by Saturday morning’s terrible earth tremors which hit northern and central parts of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir will take quite some days before it is fully assessed. Due to collapse of communication facilities and inaccessibility of worst affected population in the remote areas of Azad Kashmir, Northern Areas and Hazara and Kohistan Divisions of Frontier province the information on casualties is trickling in. According to latest reports, some 20,000 persons have been killed and over 50,000 injured. There is no way that the existing health care system can cope with the requirement. The injured cannot be shifted to nearby hospitals and clinics as these facilities are already over-chocked. Even in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, the doctors are seen attending to the wounded in hospital corridors, open areas and even on the roads. Our hearts go out in sympathy to the bereaved families and the injured who are dying for want of medical help.
While international community has responded to the need for relief in the quake hit areas, the collapse of one tower of Margala Housing complex in Islamabad’s prestigious residential sector has brought into sharp focus the absence of machinery and equipment needed for rescue work in the event a high-rise building is reduced to rubble. The eyewitnesses say that not more than ten per cent persons trapped under the debris could be pulled out as the rescue teams do not have the modern machinery to meet eventuality of this type. The frantic appeals on cell phones by scores of those trapped under the debris are proving futile. To move giant concrete blocks the workers need special cranes and cutters which we do not have. Japanese Ambassador has offered to bring by air the special machinery for the purpose.
Experts have all along warned that Islamabad and Frontier province are in the quake prone area. Sometime back, the Daily Mail had suggested that building regulations in the major urban centres to cater for natural calamities like earth quake may be tightened. Side by side, we needed machinery and equipment to undertake relief work if a high rise building crumbles. With the sky-rocketing land prices in big cities, there is consequential tendency amongst builders to go up and up. It surely gives more money to a builder of a high-rise building but it is doubtful if the concerned authorities make sure that the building regulations are strictly followed. At least, collapse of one tower of Margala housing complex has exposed the inherent weakness of the Federal Capital’s building control system.
It is a pity that our concerned officials do not learn from the experiences of builders in other countries. It is very well to look big but while looking big, safety of human beings has to be ensured. The developers and the concerned city development authorities are equally responsible for laxity which has caused enormous miseries and damage to human life and property. Our legislators must reflect on the existing legal framework and proceed to plug the holes which have compounded the tragedy. The Government must at the same time arrange modern equipment and machinery for emergency relief operations should a big building crumbles due to earth tremors or other reasons.

A miserable final term for Bush

There is growing resentment among his own supporters at the massive spending. He may not be a lame duck just yet but he is carrying a noticeable limp. George W. Bush’s popularity ratings have been blown off course by Katrina and Rita, and Iraq is being seen in a new light by an American public more ready and willing to question their president’s policies. Like any president, Bush concentrates on what he sees as the successes of his years in the White House. Yet, imagine for a moment that Florida in 2000 had gone for Al Gore and that Gore had been re-elected. Now imagine what the press would be saying in America if a Democrat was in office for four years while Osama Bin Laden remained at large. They would have a field day. The truth is that Bush has enjoyed a favourable press for a very mixed record.
At least up until now. Bush’s final term is turning out to be a miserable affair. Social security system reform, once his top domestic priority, is hardly mentioned. There is growing resentment among his own supporters at the massive spending programmes the biggest since Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s he has embarked on. He has pledged to “spend what it takes” (certain to be hundreds of billions of dollars) to rebuild the Gulf coast after Katrina and Rita.
But this can only be achieved by cutting domestic spending elsewhere at a time when the gap between rich and poor Americans is its widest ever. A huge deficit and skyrocketing petrol prices add to the misery of the White House, which is now braced for trouble over revelations of spiteful leaks about the identity of a CIA agent married to a maverick diplomat critical of the administration’s Iraq policy. That looks like implicating senior aides to the president and Dick Cheney. Bush could soon be reaching for the crutches.

—Gulf News