Pakistan's quake generation learning under canvas

BALAKOT, Pakistan, Oct 5: She cannot avoid thinking about what happened the day the earthquake struck, but 13-year-old Saadia has a mental routine for starting each school day.

Open the door, turn right, and don't look back at the weeds growing on the nearby wasteland where her old school used to be.

Saadia is from Balakot -- a town in North West Frontier Province that suffered even more intense devastation than Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, in the quake that killed close to 75,000 people on October.8, 2005.

Her home in the scenic valley among the mountains of northern Pakistan is just a couple of minutes walk from where her old school once stood.

The four-storey Shahleel Public School collapsed in the quake.

Saadia was buried under its rubble for four days. Her younger brother died there along with around 400 other pupils.

The 7.6 quake struck just before 9:00 am on a Saturday, when classrooms were full.

It was the same story everywhere in the quake zone -- there were estimates that nearly half of those who died were children.

For Saadia memories of the screaming and wailing as she lay, trapped beneath a metal pipe are all too vivid.

Her traumatised elder sister still refuses to attend school, but Saadia's ambitions have been fired by the tragedy.

''If I don't study I have no future. I want to be a doctor and my family supports me in this. That is why I am studying again,'' said the demure, pink-cheeked girl.

These days Saadia attends a class still under canvas as the government has yet to start reconstruction.

''Even sitting here, I'm scared that it will happen again,'' she says.

That too is an all too common story in the quake zone.

ISLAMIST CHARITIES FILL GAP

Rebuilding has been slow.

The authorities are planning to showcase the opening of a few new schools to mark the anniversary, but most will have to wait.

Nadara Hassan Din, aged eight, is one of the lucky ones. Her school at Chakoti, a Kashmiri village close to the ceasefire line with India, is one of those earmarked for an early opening. ''It is better than the previous building. We're very happy. It has bigger classrooms and open space for playing,'' Nadara said, before saddening as she remembers two friends who died.

Nadara also has career ambitions, inspired by a teacher who also lost her life that day.

''I liked my teacher and want to be like her.'' Close to 6,300 schools and colleges were damaged or destroyed in the quake, according to the government's Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA).

Actual rebuilding started in July, and ERRA hopes around 25 percent will have been completed by mid-2007, while completing all of them is expected to take three years.

The army general who is the deputy chair of ERRA is proud that despite the scale of the catastrophe children's schooling carried on.

''There is no child who has missed his educational year. Whether it is in tents or it is in prefab or it is in permanent building, the schools are functional,'' Lieutenant-General Nadeem Ahmed said.

Soldiers took the place of dead or injured teachers during the early weeks of the disaster, as the authorities put a priority on restarting classes under canvas to provide children with some sense of normality.

Anwar Qureshi at the Jinnah Muslim school in Balakot says the government has looked after its own schools first, while private ones like his are struggling.

He also sees many families, unable to afford any other option having had their livelihoods destroyed, sending their children to schools run by Islamist charities that have been branded terrorist organisations by the United States.

''But why blame the parents because they have been economically savaged and prefer to send their children to schools where they don't have to pay fees,'' he said, while worrying that some boys will be recruited by militants.

''RED ZONE'' Pakistan is depending on international funding and non-government organisations to sponsor about half the schools, and quake-proof designs have to be approved.

One of the questions most frequently raised in Pakistan in the weeks following the quake was why had so many schools collapsed.

Speculation of corruption and incompetence inevitably followed. Now the authorities don't want to take chances.

''We won't allow anybody to violate building codes and even NGOs have been asked to first get approval from concern department,'' said Awais Manzoor, ERRA's Programme Director.

The people in Balakot could be in for a long wait.

The government has declared Balakot a ''red zone'', meaning all new construction is blocked, and there are proposals to shift the town to a safer location away from the fault line.

For now though, the kids in Balakot go to school carrying satchels donated by the United Nation's Childrens Fund UNICEF, embossed with the message in Urdu ''Life will smile once again''.

Reuters