LAHORE: Quake survivors have been warned against heavy landslides in Kashmir and North West Frontier Province (NWFP) next summer due to melting of frozen water in deep fissures and wide cracks of rocks caused by the recent earthquake.

The warning came from Punjab University’s Centre for Earthquake Studies and Geology Department director Dr Umar Farooq here on Thursday who was speaking at a monthly meeting of the Hamdard Thinkers Forum held at the Hamdard Centre here with Senator S M Zafar in the chair.

He said fissures would be filled in the winter with the rain water that would be frozen due to cold winter weather. In summer that water would melt and flow out of the cracks resulting in landslides. Houses and other structures, he said, should not be built in such areas, particularly, at mountain slopes.

He said that massive landslides might cause further heavy loss of life and property if the people were not prevented from building their huts in those areas or on loose soil.

The people should be given awareness on a massive scale about the possibilities of landslides and precautions they should take. He emphasised the need to study these landslide areas at macro and micro levels.

Dr Farooq said that about 80% of the area in Pakistan was seismic and there was a possibility of another earthquake of great magnitude within next 20 years or so.

He was critical of those so-called experts who had caused great harassment and panic among the people that another earthquake might occur ‘within 48 hours’ of the recent heavy jolt saying “everybody has become a seismologist.”

He said that exactly 100 years ago there was a heavy earthquake in Kangra valley, now called Himachal Pradesh, in 1905 and then there was an earthquake in 1935 at Quetta that caused a heavy loss of 60,000 people.

“We have not learned a lesson from the past and failed to take precautions to minimise the loss by the earthquake.” He said that building codes were never implemented and now there was a spate of high rise and multi-storey buildings in Quetta.

Codes should be revised and strictly implemented to ensure construction of public and private building codes were never implemented and now there was a spate of high-rise and multi-storey buildings in Quetta.

Codes should be revised and strictly implemented to ensure construction of public and private buildings under the new conditions.

Dr Farooq said that buildings should be designed with sloping roofs. He said that in Muzaffarabad public buildings had collapsed as most of them had been built using defective material without proper inspection.

Billions of rupees allocated for these buildings were misappropriated by government officials and contractors.

Senator S M Zafar said that though the nation was not prepared for such a heavy disaster that had taken place due to the earthquake on Oct 8, yet it had united and risen to provide rescue and relief measures to quake victims.

He said the people of Pakistan had proved with their immediate response that they had deep feelings for the people of Kashmir. He said the army had worked hard in an organised and disciplined manner to provide relief to the people in far-flung areas. - Internews