After the tumbler

CASUALTIES resulting from the Balochistan tumbler would have been much higher if it had hit a major urban centre in the province. Even now, when the epicentre was situated in a rural area near Ziarat, dotted with mostly single storey mud houses, the toll was high - over 200 dead, more than 500 injured and thousands rendered homeless. Entire habitations in the vicinity of the epicentre, about 60 km from Quetta, have been wiped out, turning thousands of houses into piles of rubble. Aftershocks, 130 on Wednesday, forced thousands of people to sleep outside in the open, despite zero-degree temperature at places. Rescue and relief operations have begun and Chairman National Disaster Management Authority, Farooq Ahmad Khan, has expressed confidence in the administration's ability to cope with the situation without international help. There is a need, however, to draw lessons from the disaster, something that was not properly done after the devastation caused by the 2005 earthquake that caused havoc in AJK and adjoining areas of NWFP.