(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Fifty families uprooted by devastating floods earlier this year in northern Pakistan have moved into new houses they helped to build with support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), an UNDP official said on Thursday.
The families are the first among thousands of people who will help to build and then reside in disaster-resistant structures in northernmost Gilgit-Baltistan where about 87,000 people, or 10 percent of the province’s population, have been displaced by floods and landslides since July.
“One of the first steps in rebuilding lives is to help people get a roof over their heads,” said Abdul Qadir, UNDP Environment Specialist in Pakistan. “Getting people into proper accommodation before winter comes is one of our important goals.”
Some 500 disaster-proof houses are initially planned for about 4,500 people in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Hunza Nagar and Ghizer districts and in the Chitral region of neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. In these combined areas, more than 3,300 houses were destroyed or damaged, affecting more than 29,000 people and killing 192.
The houses, made of poplar wood, stone masonry and water-resistant roofs, are each 400 square feet and cost the equivalent of US$1,000. The interior - living room, kitchen, storage space, and washroom - is insulated to protect inhabitants from harsh winters.
Inhabitants themselves were involved in digging the houses’ foundations and collecting stones for their construction as part of an income-generating program run by the UNDP for local flood-affected populations.+
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