MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan | Three years after a life-shattering earthquake ripped across a swath of northern Pakistan, thousands of citizens are preparing to spend their third winter shivering in tents and other makeshift shelters.
The magnitude 7.6 quake on Oct. 8, 2005, killed more than 75,000 people, destroyed 600,000 homes and left an estimated 3.5 million people homeless.
Of 11,534 primary and secondary schools, an estimated 10,000 were destroyed or heavily damaged. Many are still waiting repair or reconstruction.
Despite its natural splendor, Pakistan-administered Kashmir’s capital of Muzaffarabad is littered with man-made eyesores born from the earthquake.
Clusters of weather-beaten tents and makeshift edifices of mud, stone and rock topped with metal sheeting sit haphazardly along the terraces circling the mountains above the confluence of the Jhelum and Neelam rivers.
“They promised to help us as soon as possible, but it’s three years later now and we’re still waiting,” said Raja Ashrif, 35, whose three-bedroom house was damaged in the quake, forcing his family into temporary shelter. “We can’t live in our house and we can’t afford to repair it.”
According to Muzaffarabad’s development authority, only 450 of an estimated 1,500 houses here have been rebuilt. The situation is similar in other cities, where residents and local government officials complain that reconstruction has been sluggish.
“Progress has been slow because we are totally dependent on the federal government, and they have given us nothing so far,” said Raja Khan, reconstruction minister in Pakistan’s Azad Jammu and Kashmir state government, which runs the disputed Kashmir territory.
The government’s compensation to residents whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged is a little more than $2,300, with an additional $1,000 for land loss in some cases. The payments have done little to spur rebuilding.
“This is not even a peanut,” said Ms. Khan. “It’s nothing to build a house with.”
For Saleema, who like many women in this part of Kashmir uses only one name, the government’s disbursement wasn’t enough even for a simple shelter. Instead, she has used the money to buy basic necessities, such as vegetables and clean water.
With few options, Saleema and her three grown children pitched a tent on the site of their home in a squalid space. They have no access to running water.
“We feel helpless,” Saleema said, “but we’ve gotten used to living in this environment.”
Many of the region’s schools are also suffering from the slow pace of reconstruction.
The eight sprawling tents lining the campus of the Ali Akbar Awan Boys’ School in Muzaffarabad make the place look more like a displacement camp than an academic institution.
Scores of students are jammed in behind a few desks, and only shards of natural light creep through open canvas flaps to light the makeshift classroom. Another group dressed in long-sleeve khaki shirts and slacks tightens bolts and pieces together new wooden chairs outside.
The school’s principal, Syed Tirimizi, said only 200 of the combined primary and secondary school’s 1,800 students fit into the prefabricated building donated by the Turkish government. “What can we do with the other students?” he asked.
The World Bank has provided $18 million toward rebuilding schools, part of a $40 million loan to the federal government for reconstruction. The money is earmarked to build 331 primary schools, but a lack of qualified contractors, rising fuel and raw material prices, and severe weather have thwarted the process.
The frustration is palpable at the Ali Akbar Awan Boys School.
“Not a single penny has been contributed toward rebuilding so far by the government,” Mr. Tirimizi said. “This is a great injustice because they’re the beneficiary of donated funds, but there’s been nothing for us.”
Work on a permanent two-story structure with 45 classrooms has yet to begin, said Mr. Tirimizi, who explains that supplies at the school were donated by the Turkish government and international aid groups. Otherwise, he said, the Pakistani government “is no position to help us.”
Despite the determination of the school’s staff, the strains are apparent.
“I have to break the students up into small groups and use study drills to keep their attention and make sure they’re involved in the class,” said Mohammed Zialhaq, 32, a math instructor who teaches eight classes a day. “This building isn’t sufficient, but it’s better than the tents.”
The earthquake destroyed 75 percent of the region’s medical health facilities, but according to the State Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency, which oversees rebuilding in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, 176 health facilities have been rebuilt or built from scratch since the natural disaster.
The facility in Charak Pura, a two-hour drive from the regional capital Muzaffarabad, is one of 15 newly constructed rural health centers in isolated reaches.
Serving an estimated 10,000 people from approximately 20 surrounding villages, the center provides local residents with access to doctors and modern medical equipment.
“There were no doctors here before,” said Mohammed Khan, 32, a pediatrician at the center. “This was nothing more than a first-aid station.”
Perhaps most significantly for residents here, the new health center often eliminates the need to travel to Muzaffarabad.
“We’re poor people,” said Rashida, who uses only one name. “We can’t go to the city regularly.”
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