ARC Pakistan’s Earthquake Response

ARC immediately responded to the 8th October tragedy which destroyed much of the Northern region of Pakistan. ARC adopted a holistic approach in providing relief and focused its efforts to provide food, shelter, health, livelihood, water and sanitation and other basic necessities, focusing on the people of Bagh District.

The immediate goal of the emergency response was to stabilize the well being of 46,000 inhabitants comprising 7,000 families of District Bagh, AJK, who were severely affected by the earthquake. The initial survey carried out by ARC revealed that the inhabitants were in dire need of temporary shelters, winterized tents, blankets, warm clothing, food supplies, potable water, sanitation facilities, and mainly the primary and reproductive healthcare services. To address the immediate need, ARC launched four projects including ARC/OFDA Shelter project; ARC/WFP food distribution; ARC WATSAN projects and ARC/UNICEF Health Project as an immediate response to this tragedy. The greatest challenge to initiate the projects was to reach the people in outlying areas, as many of these areas were not charted in existing maps of the affected region. Land accessibility was extremely limited, as the roads and even the tracks had became impassable by landslides from the quake and subsequent aftershocks.

The meteorologists recorded that winter season started a couple of weeks prior to normal and warned that night time temperatures in the mountains may reach 15 degrees Celsius. An informal ARC shelter assessment estimated that 25 percent of families in Bagh were living in tents so survival became a challenge with the onset of the winter season.

In view of the situation, ARC provided comprehensive shelter kits for 6,000 households and fully constructed shelters for 1,258 highly vulnerable families (approx 9,000 beneficiaries) according to SPHERE standards (one warm room). 600 trucks transported material and distributed shelter package consisting of 12 CGI sheets, tool kits, 4 blankets, insulation rolls, hot water bottles, stoves and ground tarpaulin from which 6,500 families benefited. (Approx 50,000 beneficiaries) ARC further distributed 72,000 CGI Sheets, 29,000 blankets, 4,000 stoves, 3,000 tool kits, 5,000 Tarpaulin Flooring Sheets, 10,000 Hot Water Bottles, and 5,000 insulation rolls with in the 53 hamlets situated in 19 villages of Union Council Bhirpani and Bagh
The “Flying Carpenters” program provided ARC carpenters to the entire district of Bagh and on loan services to construct shelters at high altitude areas.
As the emergency repose entered in to transition phase, ARC’s intervention in reconstruction and rehabilitation expanded and we have successfully catered to the needs on 134,000 people of the Bagh district till date.

Emergency Food Distribution

Health Care

Programs for Youth and Vulnerable Women

Agricultural Programs

Water and Sanitation Program