Consolidated report on activities undertaken through the Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit
Summary
On Saturday, October 8, 2005, at 8:50 local time, a massive earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale occurred in northern Pakistan. Tremors were felt over a vast area, with the epicentre situated close to Muzaffarabad, 95 km northeast of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) mobilized a first eight-member United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team to support assessment and coordination work, in response to a request made by the Government of Pakistan. The team arrived in Islamabad on the morning of October 9th, 2005. More UNDAC members were deployed in the days following the disaster.
The Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit (Joint Environment Unit) ensured that the team included two UNDAC-trained environmental experts. They were tasked with conducting a rapid environmental assessment (REA) to assess any life-threatening environmental issues in the disaster area. The REA identified a number of acute environmental issues, including waste management, slope instability, and threats to the natural resource base. To address these issues, the Joint Environment Unit deployed four experts to Pakistan to provide practical advice, solutions and technical support. REA findings and the advice of the four experts were disseminated to national and international partners as they became available during the disaster response.
This report provides an overview of environmental aspects of the disaster response from the Joint Environment Unit’s perspective. It focuses on the actions taken by the environmental experts who were deployed to respond to the issues identified in the REA, consolidates the advice and tools they developed, and provides initial lessons learned from the response activities. The objective of the report is to contribute to improving future environmental emergency response, by sharing in one document the experience, knowledge, and tools gained by the Joint Environment Unit.
I. Introduction
Background
Major disasters have acute, negative environmental impacts that can threaten human life and welfare. These impacts may include damage to industrial facilities such as chemical plants, acute waste management problems, and erosion and landslide risks. Major disasters may also result in environmental issues that are not life-threatening and therefore less urgent, but which are nonetheless important and require attention in the early recovery process – for example, damage to ecosystems. Diagram1 illustrates a hierarchy of environmental issues in disaster situations.
The Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit (Joint Environment Unit) is the United Nations mechanism to mobilize and coordinate the international response to environmental emergencies, including natural disasters with major environmental impacts. In situations such as the Pakistan disaster, the Joint Environment Unit has the primary functions of identifying any acute issues, mobilizing assistance to ensure that they are addressed, and helping to ensure appropriate transition and follow-up so that less urgent, longer-term issues can be addressed during the recovery and rehabilitation phases.
Diagram 1. A response hierarchy. The Joint Environment Unit addresses urgent, life-threatening issues at the top of the pyramid. Development agencies and UNEP are generally responsible for the medium-longer term risks depicted at the bottom of the pyramid (Based on: Emergency response and environmental issues during the Indian Ocean tsunami-earthquake: initial lessons to learn (OCHA 2005).
Context
South Asia Earthquake
On Saturday, October 8, 2005, at 8:50 local time, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale occurred in northern Pakistan. Its tremors were felt over a vast area, with the epicentre situated close to Muzaffarabad, 95 km northeast of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
The initial earthquake and subsequent aftershocks caused thousands of deaths and destruction of infrastructure, including medical facilities, government buildings and schools. Casualty numbers from February 2006 reported 73,338 people killed, 69,412 injured and 3.3 million homeless(1).
More than 70% cities and villages in the six northern provinces of Pakistan were destroyed and 30% were damaged by the earthquake and its aftershocks(2). The cities of Muzaffarabad, Balakot and Bagh were particularly affected. Many roads and bridges were destroyed or severely damaged. The largest earthquake intensity was observed in the Kaghan, Neelum and Jhelum valleys, where landslides, rock-slides, rockfalls and debris flows were triggered. These blocked roads, and in some cases temporarily dammed rivers.
The Balakot area north of Muzaffarabad was clearly the worst hit region, with over 20,000 casualties, 90% of buildings destroyed and 100% of the population left homeless in the immediate aftermath(3). In India, official reports confirmed the deaths of 1,307 persons in Indian-administered Kashmir, while 37,607 buildings collapsed(4). Tremors were also felt in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar and Jalabad provinces where some buildings collapsed(5).
Overview of the Joint Environment Unit response
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) mobilised an eight-member United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team6 to support assessment and coordination work in response to a request made by the Government of Pakistan. The team arrived in Islamabad on the morning of October 9th, 2005. More UNDAC members were deployed in the days following the disaster.
The Joint Environment Unit ensured that the UNDAC team included two UNDAC-trained environmental experts. These experts were tasked with conducting a rapid environmental assessment (REA) to identify any lifethreatening environmental issues and to recommend areas where additional support was required to mitigate risks and impacts.
The experts identified a number of acute environmental issues, prompting a decision by the Joint Environment Unit to deploy an additional four experts to respond to the concerns identified.
One of the major challenges during the relief phase was obtaining access to the worst affected areas in Pakistan’s north: thousands of people were cut off in remote valleys as landslides destroyed roads or continue to block them. The combination of the enormous number of injured, the high altitude of the affected areas, the mountainous terrain, the almost complete destruction of infrastructure in an area covering 28,000 square kilometres and the rapidly deteriorating weather conditions as the Himalayan winter begins, made this situation “the toughest logistical challenge the aid community has faced to date”, according to Jan Egeland, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs(7).
Consolidated report: objectives and scope
This report provides an overview of environmental aspects of the disaster response from the Joint Environment Unit’s perspective. It focuses on the actions taken by the environmental experts who were deployed to respond to the issues identified in the REA, consolidates the advice and tools they developed, and provides initial lessons learned from the response activities. The objective of the report is to contribute to improving future environmental emergency response, by sharing in one document the experience, knowledge, and tools gained by the Joint Environment Unit. The information contained in this report – in particular the results of the REA and the technical advice, tools and guidelines developed by the environmental experts – was shared with international partners and in the field as it became available during the course of the response. The report does not provide comprehensive information on the activities of other organizations that were engaged in related activities, for example, CARE International and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Pakistan: General Country Information
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has a population of 161.1 million and covers a total land area of 796,095 sq km(8). The country borders on Iran to the west, India to the southeast, Afghanistan to the northwest, and China to the north. Pakistan’s northern highlands, the region particularly affected by the recent earthquake, is mountainous, rendering access difficult even under normal conditions. The region is also characterised by extreme variations in temperature.
Pakistan is highly prone to disasters, including floods, earthquakes, windstorms, fires and industrial accidents. According to the 2003 World Disasters Report, 6,037 people were killed and 8,989,631 directly affected by natural disasters in the decade between 1993 and 2002(9). The 2005 earthquake is amongst the most devastating natural disasters in Pakistan’s history(10).
Footnotes
(1) Numbers according to OCHA South Asia Earthquake Fact Sheet February 2006, available on http://earthquake05.un.org.pk/uploaddocuments/1465SouthAsiaEQ_FactSheetFeb2006.pdf
(2) OCHA Situation Report No. 19 South Asia Earthquake, 1.11.2005, available on www.reliefweb.int
(3) OCHA Situation Report No. 11 South Asia Earthquake, 16.10.2005, available on www.reliefweb.int
(4) OCHA Situation Report No. 14 South Asia Earthquake 19.10.2005, available on http://www.reliefweb.int
(5) OCHA Situation Report No. 2 South Asia Earthquake 8.10.2005, available on http://www.reliefweb.int
(6) See UNDAC team website at for more information.
(7) Jan Egeland. Quake Victims Need Our Immediate Help. OpEd, 3.11.2005, available on
http://ochaonline.un.org/webpage.asp?MenuID=9853&Page=2035
(8) Population data according to Country Profile: Pakistan on http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/country_profiles/1157960.stm
(9) International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2003. World Disasters Report 2003. Focus on ethics in aid, available on http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2003/
(10) Asian Development Bank – World Bank 2005. Pakistan Earthquake 2005. Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment, http://www.adb.org/Documents/Reports/pakistan-damage-needs-assessment.pdf
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