SAIDPUR, 23 October 2007 (IRIN) - For Muhammad Zaman, the road connecting his village to the next - and onward to Muzaffarabad, the provincial capital of quake-affected Pakistani-administered Kashmir - is not just important, it is a lifeline.

"After the quake, travelling to Muzaffarabad was impossible. We were cut off," he said, talking about Saidpur, a largely agricultural community of 1,800 people, 22km north of the city.

On 8 October 2005, 80 percent of the homes in his village were destroyed in the earthquake that ripped through Pakistani-administered Kashmir and the country's North West Frontier Province, killing more than 75,000 people, injuring 130,000, and rendering more than 3.5 million homeless.

In Saidpur, 78 people died and getting the sick and injured to hospital was all but impossible due to lack of access, the 75-year-old said, recalling the innumerable landslides and avalanches that plagued the area in the weeks after the quake.

In addition, it was impossible to get much-needed relief supplies to the affected area.

"For two or three weeks we saw no one," Zaman said. "The road was blocked completely so we didn't get any help. It wasn't until they started the helicopter service that we began receiving assistance."

Across the 30,000 sqkm quake-affected area - roughly the size of Belgium - thousands of mountain hamlets and villages faced similar challenges. In seconds, the network of rural roads and pathways that connected this mountainous area virtually collapsed.

According to the government's Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), 6,440km of roads and 172 bridges were rendered useless.

Thousands of quake survivors left their communities for areas where assistance was more readily available or opted to stay with family or friends around the country.

And while over the past two years Pakistani authorities have worked hard at rebuilding the region's shattered road network, given the sheer scale of the damage, with limited resources, it has focused much of its attention on the larger primary roads that connect cities and towns, leaving many rural communities - where most people actually live - with no choice but to seek their own solutions.

Food-for-work

The World Food Programme (WFP), with the area's local forestry department, has helped Saidpur and other small communities to do precisely that.

"After the quake, road access to many areas, including markets, was almost impossible," Sultan Mehmood, head of WFP's Muzaffarabad sub-office, told IRIN. "Through the rehabilitation of rural link roads we have enabled the local population to have access to markets and other towns, as well as health and education facilities," he said.

This in turn has boosted agricultural activities, as well as home reconstruction efforts, he added.

Since 1 April 2006, almost 200,000 people have participated in the WFP's Food for Work initiative, a critical component of the agency's Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation, successfully rehabilitating more than 1,300km of rural roads and almost 9,000km of bridal paths in the quake-affected area.

Participants working for a month receive more than 96kg in food assistance, comprised of wheat flour, pulses, vegetable oil and salt, Mehmood added.

Helping the return process

However, it is the impact on local communities in the quake-affected area that is most revealing.

In the village of Mara Mangran, 17km north of Muzaffarabad, nestled in the mountains of the Neelum Valley, residents have now returned after the reopening of the narrow stony tract leading up to their community.

"For months, we saw no assistance here so residents moved to Muzaffarabad and other nearby cities. No one wanted to come back," Masood Rehman, a 37-year-old school-teacher in the village, told IRIN.

Now everything has changed since participants in the programme re-opened the road.

Although about 75 percent of the village's 1,500 residents remain in transitional shelter, most returnees are now in the process of reconstructing their homes - something that months earlier would have been impossible given the high cost of transporting building materials into the area.

Ameer Ullaha, 67, who has already completed four months of the programme, said: "Without this road we couldn't return. Now we can pass easily. Access to our homes is now easier and I'm proud to be a part of that."

Yet despite such tangible progress, huge challenges remain for much of quake-affected northern Pakistan. Just 2,000km is now under rehabilitation or repair, according to the authority, while the remaining 4,000km - comprised of smaller rural roads, such as those in Saidpur - have yet to be considered due to lack of funds.

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