Three years after a deadly earthquake devastated Pakistan's mountainous north, recovery is being hampered by poor security and slow reconstruction of public buildings, aid agencies say.

The 7.6 magnitude quake, which struck Kashmir and Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Oct. 8 2005, killed around 75,000 people and left as many as 3.5 million homeless.

After the quake, international relief interventions were generally welcomed by local populations. But rising militancy and violence in Pakistan's northwest are making it harder for aid agencies to complete their programmes.

"The current security problem has made it almost impossible for international agencies to access the more outlying areas," Concern Worldwide country director Dorothy Blane told AlertNet.

Foreign aid agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Save the Children, have been directly targeted by attacks on their compounds in NWFP, causing them to suspend their activities for short periods.

Earlier this year, Church World Service said its field staff had experienced psychological stress due to the widespread harassment of aid organisations by militant groups, who have often called for foreign aid workers to be expelled from the region.

Samina Khan, director of Sungi Development Foundation, a large Pakistani agency, agreed that the operating environment had got tougher: "For the past year, security has become a very serious issue, especially for the work that we are doing - working in remote areas."

But Khan said Sungi had been able to continue its operations because it was a local organisation and had formed good relationships with people on the ground.

BUILDING BACK BETTER, BUT SLOWLY

Even without geopolitical tensions, efforts to reconstruct homes, schools and hospitals have been hampered by bureaucracy, bad weather, restricted access to mountainous terrain and difficulties in acquiring land and building materials.

The disaster - the worst in the country's history - was compounded by poor-quality construction. Around 600,000 houses were destroyed or damaged, and thousands of children were crushed to death after their schools collapsed on top of them.

As a result, the government decided to implement a quake-resistant building programme in which local people were trained to rebuild their own homes and financial assistance was disbursed in instalments paid only after checks.

"Pakistan is a very earthquake-prone country and as such it is important to make critical infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and houses earthquake-resilient," said Salvano Briceño, director of the United Nations' International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR). "Poorly built buildings are the ones that kill people not earthquakes."

Over 400,000 quake-resistant homes have been finished, according to the government's Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA).

ERRA chairman Altaf Saleem told AlertNet the housing programme was almost complete and 90 percent of new homes comply with the government's building code. He said fewer than 2,000 people were still living in tents - mainly because they had lost their land in landslides or were physically incapacitated.

TENT SCHOOLS 'IN TATTERS'

When it comes to education and healthcare facilities, the picture is less rosy, with less than 10 percent rebuilt so far.

Saleem said public-sector construction was taking longer because the government needed to purchase new land where buildings were located in dangerous zones or had to be enlarged to accommodate more people.

He said a number of public buildings would be completed in two to three months time. But in the meantime aid workers are concerned the delays are harming essential services.

"In the more remote villages, children are still being forced to go to school in tents which were given three years ago and which are now in tatters," said Sungi's Khan.

Other critics point to a scarcity of human resources. "The international community has been very generous, and there are schools and housing in most areas, but there is shortage of teachers and doctors," said Tanveer Sarder, a local TV producer and documentary filmmaker.

Sarder recently visited the quake zone and found that some areas still don't have a basic health unit - although the government insists health indicators are better now than before the quake.

Aid agencies also say there is need to create employment opportunities in rural areas. People living in NWFP - one of Pakistan's most neglected and conservative provinces - have always struggled to survive.

Many relied on remittances from family members working in Islamabad and Karachi, but after the quake, some migrants were forced to return home to care for surviving relatives. Now they are struggling to earn a living.

STILL WAITING FOR A NEW CITY

Another bone of contention is the relocation of Balakot, one of the cities worst hit by the quake, which was judged to be unsafe for habitation.

The government has earmarked Bakrial, 20 km away, as the New Balakot City. But problems with land acquisition and opposition from residents in both places have delayed the move.

Meanwhile, survivors in Balakot have been living in temporary prefabricated houses for the past three years. They will receive their new land in seven to eight months' time, ERRA says.

"If you have an earthquake of this magnitude and this number of affected people, it is a big task," said Saleem, adding that he expected reconstruction and rehabilitation work to be finished by 2011.

On the positive side, aid workers say the disaster has created new opportunities for women to participate in social life.

"Post-earthquake, there seemed to be more openness for some women because there were lots of positive role models for them during the relief efforts and they have been allowed to form village communities," said Concern's Blane.

Abdul Karim Nayani, ISDR's regional programme manager, said his agency had helped villagers in isolated border areas to set up community organisations - unheard of before the disaster.

"Women and education have benefited from the relief and reconstruction, and people have learned that they have a voice," he said. "It's a collateral benefit."

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