Helping Japan in its hour of need

We should do someth­ing for Japan becaus­e they helped us during the 2005 earthq­uake and in the recent floods.

Pakistani newspapers are full of letters demanding that Pakistan should be doing something concrete for Japan in its hour of need. This national sentiment is understandable because Japan really stepped up for Pakistan and its affected people during the response to the devastating 2005 earthquake and again in the recent flood.

One of the objectives set during the 2005 earthquake response was for Pakistan to build up a core capacity to respond to future natural disasters in Pakistan as well as respond to such emergencies abroad.

Consequently, a 70-member, fully equipped, state-of-the-art Urban Search and Rescue team, along with a canine component and a separate 30-bed field hospital has been on standby. Two C-130 aircraft from the PAF are also standing by. Pakistan has a record of sending such teams, be it after the Yemen earthquake in the early 90s or, more recently, to Iran.

Of course, Japan, who is facing tremendous logistic problems of distribution and fuel shortage and has deployed all its resources is doing all that it can and is in the best position to decide if such a team is now required, when the quantity of survivors will unfortunately be much less, although the last survivor was found in Pakistan 56 days after the earthquake. The rescue teams operating there came in the first few days and teams offered from other countries, including Europe, are on hold.

Similarly, on the nuclear crisis side, under article five of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Assistance Convention Member States make available information on the experts, equipment and material that they can be provided in cases of nuclear accident or radiological emergency. The IAEA has developed a Response Assistance Network through which countries register their National Asistance Capabilities (NACs). Pakistan, through the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Commission (PNRA), in 2008, registered its NACs in four different areas: Source search and recovery, assessment and advice, radiation monitoring and environmental measurements.

The IAEA has been informed that Pakistan is ready to provide such assistance if so required by Japan. This will no doubt be reiterated in the special meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors taking place in Vienna on March 21, 2011.

It should be clear that Pakistan would sincerely like to help Japan, since Japan has done so much for us during the earthquake and flood and because it has been a generous partner to Pakistan in economic assistance. Now it is up to the Japanese side to decide what is required, which may extend, at this stage, to tents and blankets for relief assistance.

In any case, Pakistan’s genuine offer to send a relief team and a field hospital, at a time when many foreigners are leaving Japan, apprehensive of a worsening nuclear crisis, will register with the people and government of Japan.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2011.