The historic recurrence, a greater shake

History repeated itself.  After 10 years, there was a greater shake. The historic recurrence shook us at a time when we were not even done with fixing damages of the previous calamity. The telecommunication networks got jammed. There was a state of panic again. There was loss of precious lives again.

It was 7.6 on Richter scale a decade ago, while it is reportedly 7.5 now and much deeper than before. A fear lies inside me. I cannot even dare to imagine the loss. I hope and pray that the proportion of damage is not the same.

Learning is a great way to reduce or avoid such damage. Sadly, we have not learnt much. We are still lacking in specialised research and documentation of available statistics, to be used for better planning. There is still a great need to encourage both citizens and government to become aware and take steps towards disaster resilient societies. There is still a need to convince them to invest in future, and construct earthquake resistant buildings, as the resilience is for life. There are still no proper drills being carried out in schools and workplaces, to train people to evacuate in case of emergency situation. There is still a great need to work on post-traumatic stress counselling. A lot needs to be done for better disaster management.

However, to address a misfortune like this is not the sole responsibility of government. We need to take measures on a collective level.

Media also needs to be more mindful. Various ethical issues need to be considered while telling the story of a disaster like this, and its complexity. The psychological state of the masses might not be the same as it was a decade ago. They might not be able to absorb the shock as they did then. They might not be able to take the stress as much as they did then.

International Day for Disaster Reduction was commemorated earlier this month which focused on indigenous knowledge. The day was observed with an objective to raise awareness about the actions being taken for disaster risk reduction. Undoubtedly, the significance of the indigenous knowledge is huge in harmony with modern science. It can add resilience to both an individual and a society, and help in taking precautionary measures and planning impact mitigation.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2015.