It has been two days of extreme grief for Nepal after the earthquake. The death toll of 2,500 is shockingly high. Though wars and political conflicts can be picked apart and editorialised and analysed, we are at a loss when it comes to natural disaster, where lives are lost in vain, no one can be blamed and no retribution can be demanded. Yet, a tribute to the lives lost, prayers and condolences are in order.
As a nation, Pakistan can sympathise. The memory of the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir is still fresh in our minds. Not only was it a terrible trauma for the people of the region, but a national loss still felt today. Pakistan has offered support to the devastated nation. Two Pakistani aircrafts carrying relief supplies have reached Nepal to aid in relief efforts and the aircraft also brought back 39 Pakistani citizens. There are even more Indian citizens stranded and killed, as well as tourists and mountaineers. India has been running rescuing missions as well, apart from dropping relief supplies in the worst affected valleys in case landing is not possible. China and the US are also giving assistance and aid.
Looking at the map of tectonic places, the earthquake belt passes though though the length of Pakistan up to the Karakoram range and turns east into north India and Nepal. In the case of Pakistan, the shifting of plates and the continual rise of the Himalayas was the reason for the 2005 earthquake, and the same may hold true for Nepal today. With over 600 million people living along the fault-line across the Himalayan belt, South Asia’s earthquake exposure is very high. We know these facts, and yet we cannot change the rumblings of the earth nor can we effectively catalyse a mass scale exodus across three or more countries. This could have easily been a repeat of 2005 for Pakistan. What has to be realised is that even though these were not Pakistani lives that were lost, all human death is regrettable and we must offer all the support that we can to Nepal, even at the individual level.