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.
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.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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