EARTHQUAKE RISK PERCEPTION OF STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED IN HOUSING SAFETY IN
PAKISTAN
Ghazala Naeem∗
MEE07155

Supervisor:

Dr. Kenji Okazaki**

ABSTRACTPakistan is vulnerable against potential seismic risk and has recently suffered from the disastrous
earthquake in October 2005 causing enormous human and economics losses. In this study, after anoutline of seismicity of Pakistan, damages by the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and consequent
reconstruction activities, results and analysis of a survey conducted among all stake holders
involved in housing construction are presented. The survey consisted of various questions on
seismic risk perception of house owners (residents), house builders/ head masons, central and local
government officers. As resident’s survey was conducted in two different communities, one wasseverely affected and other was not damaged by the 2005 Kashmir Earthquake, their responses aredifferent about earthquake risk perception but similar for mitigation efforts. Some similar outcomes
were found in case of survey analysis of builders/ masons, central and local government officers.
The 2005 Kashmir Earthquake has triggered the consciousness among all stake holders in Pakistan
especially people who have either suffered the disastrous consequences of the earthquake or havebeen involved in post earthquake relief and rehabilitation activities in affected areas. This potential
needs to be utilized in an optimum way as such memories can be faded away quickly.
Some suggestions, to improve housing safety based on the analysis are proposed to raise
disaster mitigation awareness and disseminate information regarding safer technologies effectively,
to communities. This study may be helpful while planning mitigation programs and publicawareness campaigns on preparedness in Pakistan and areas with similar characteristics.
Key words: Earthquake risk perception, housing safety, disaster reduction

BACKGROUND AND METHEDOLOGYThe 2005 Kashmir Earthquake demonstrated the extent of damage, an earthquake can cause in
Pakistan. Given to Pakistan’s seismo-tectonic setting, this earthquake is not a one time event, but apart of sequence of earthquakes that happened in the past and will happen in the future. Most
seismically active areas are north, northwestern and western sections of the country along theboundary of the Indian Tectonic Plate with Iranian and Afghan Micro Plates. The number offatalities and injuries exceeds 73,000 and 125,000, making it by far the most fatal earthquake everto occur in the Indian subcontinent or its surrounding plate boundaries. Most of the deaths werecaused by the collapse of buildings that were not adequately designed for earthquake resistance,∗

Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, Pakistan
Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Japan**1

were poorly constructed using stone, fired brick or concrete blocks using mud or cement mortar. In
1935 a Richter magnitude M7.5 strike-slip earthquake near the city of Quetta (the only large
settlement in an otherwise sparsely populated region between Afghanistan and Pakistan) resulted inan estimated 35,000 dead.
In Pakistan mostly buildings have been procured by the owners themselves by employing
unqualified and unskilled contractors/ masons for saving cost as for ordinary private construction
there is no legal frame work for licensing requirement of contractor. It is evident that there has
never existed an effective building monitoring mechanism. Even in cities municipal organizations
do not have the institutional capacity for the strict implementation of the code for building
construction, making almost all the building stock inappropriate especially, for a seismic region. .
The 2005 Kashmir Earthquake proved the vulnerability of housing stock and fatal
consequences which lead to a realization of safer houses in Pakistan. During past three years ofreconstruction activities in earthquake affected areas, national and international organizations aremaking efforts to ensure safety of post earthquake construction of the affected areas. Therefore, thisstudy aims to analyze hazard-related human behaviors to identify the factors that determine theunderstanding and interpretation of the people: how the people perceive seismic risks, how suchrisk perception would be biased by economic and social aspects, how they would like to avoid suchrisk, using social survey data carried out in Pakistan, involving key players for earthquake safety i.e.
residents, government officials and house builders / head masons.
This survey was conducted in 2007 as a part of Collaborative Research and Development
Project for Disaster Mitigation under the program of Building Research Institute (BRI), Japan andNational Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) Japan, using the questionnaires developedby Dr. Kenji Okazaki (GRIPS). All interviews were carried out by visiting interviewees in theirhouses and work places through face to face communication and questionnaires were filled by thesurveyors according to the answer of the respondents. As there has been no such survey onearthquake risk perception of communities and other stake holders concerned with housing safety in
Pakistan, outcome of the research will be beneficial to the experts and policy makers while planningmitigation programs and public awareness campaigns on preparedness and mitigation for theregions with similar characteristics.
SURVEY DATA AND ANALYSIS
Residents
A total of 800 households were surveyed from two different communities each represented by avillage having distinct characteristics, one lies in the high seismic zone severely affected by the2005 Kashmir Earthquake (village Panyali, District Bagh) and the second lies in the zone which has
a very low seismic activity and has practically seen no earthquake activity (village Kamman,
District Okara). This choice of two regions separated by distance and experience of disasters was tostudy the perception of the two people about disaster in general and earthquake disasters inparticular. Respondents were asked questions to know how they perceive seismic risk like: whether
they think their house is safe against earthquakes, how they want to avoid the risk of damage totheir house and to their family, what they know about retrofitting etc., in addition to the questions
about their sex, age, number of family members, household income, occupation, academic
qualification, and house related information such as floor area, type of house, cost and ownership.
In both communities, 96% respondents were males because of socio-cultural restrictions
imposed on women’s social participation and mostly respondents belong to age group between 3060 years. Most of the total population (85%) has either school education or cannot read /write at all,although in Panyali academic qualification level is higher than Kammna and comparatively better
occupations. Average house hold size in Panyali and Kamman are 6.4 and 7.8 respectively. Almost2

all houses are self/ family owned having floor area more than 200 sq m because of living styles andtype of houses. Respondents in Panyali are staying longer period in the same house i.e. more than
50% are living between 25 and 50 years in the same house. In Kamman almost 70% people areliving less than 25 years period. In terms of house type, both communities have independent houses
because of socio-cultural trends and environmental requirement in Pakistan. There is a general trend
in Pakistan of building the house by hiring mason or a local builder (labor contractors); therefore
both surveyed communities mostly have self built houses built by the local mason / house builders(85%-96%). Cost comparison of self built houses shows Panyali has a larger percentage of house
built with less cost than in Kamman. Uuse of locally available stones with mud mortar is a major
construction material in Panyali, resulting low cost of construction as compared to plain areas like
Kamman where mostly houses are built with burnt brick using cement mortar.
In response to the question about any disaster experienced in life before, almost
respondents in Panyali have experienced recent 2005 Kashmir Earthquake whereas in Kamman
73% have experienced flood because of being flood prone region. Majority of respondents inPanyali (76%) consider disaster as most affecting event because all of them have experienced the2005 Kashmir Earthquake and its aftermaths where as in Kamman 33% considers unemployment,
27 % disaster and 25% disease. Overall 84%-88% people think that a future earthquake can cause
loss of lives, injuries and loss of properties as well. In both communities almost all respondents
consider their houses unsafe against a big earthquake. More than half of the Panyali respondent
relies on masons/carpenters whereas almost same percentage in Kamman depends on government
for safer construction. Almost 50% of overall population considers use of poor construction
materials/ works as the major cause of the house collapse in case of a big earthquake. It seems thatmostly Panyali residents are aware of the technical flaws about weak construction of their houses
which had caused swerve damage to life and property by the 2005 Kashmir Earthquake. Mostly
people (96%) are unaware of the available techniques of strengthening their houses. Similarly,
respondents have estimation for cost of strengthening the house against earthquake either equal oreven many times the cost of self built house within groups of low cost houses which seem to be
unrealistic. On the average almost 80% respondents are ready to spend more than five years of theirincome to protect their house/ property from big earthquake. Almost 40% Panyali respondent haveplans either to build/ purchase an earthquake resistant house or strengthen their existing house by
retrofitting. In Kamman this percentage is relatively lower i.e. 32.7%. A large portion of theKamman population (40%) has all together no plan for safer house but in Panyali only 2.3% people
fall in this category. A great majority of Panyali residents (63%) are aware of the organization
working for disaster risk reduction in their area and mostly they have participated in community
based disaster reduction activities as compared to Kamman respondents who mostly don’t know
about any such organization. The significant difference in responses can be attributed to ongoingreconstruction and mitigation activities in earthquake affected area therefore mostly Panyali
residents have participated in community activities for disaster risk reduction.
Findings
For most affecting event, disasters are considered to be the priority event by most of the residents
but it can be noticed, there is a general high tendency of this response with the increase in income
and academic qualification levels (Figure 1 & 2). Earthquake is considered to be the most affecting
disaster within high income and academic qualification groups as seen in Figure 3 & 4. Similarly,
people having high income level and school, college and university education have relatively better
tendency towards retrofitting the house, considering their present house not strong enough to resist
big earthquakes (Figure 5 & 6).

3

Monthly income (US $)54.0%

50-100

0%

20%

37.7%

cannot read/ write

26.7%

<17

34.2%

Basic reading/writing

30.2%

17-50

58.8%

School education

59.3%

100-1667

54.4%

College/ University

51.0%

>1667

0%

40%

60%

20%

30%

40%

50%

61.1%

80.4%

College/ University

63.0%
100-1667

67.2%

School education

63.6%

50-10064.5%

Basic reading/writing

45.6%

17-50

60%

Figure2: Academic qualification & disaster as
the most affecting event

Figure 1: Monthly income disaster as mostaffecting event
>1667

10%

40.3%

cannot read/write

47.1%
<17
0%

20%

40%

60%

0%

80%

Figure 3: Monthly income and earthquake as
the most affecting disaster
income group

40%

60%

80%

100%

37.0%

>1667

10%

15%

17.9%

cannot read/write

9.1%
5%

15.4%

Basic reading/writing

23.4%

<17

21.6%

School education

38.4%
50-100
17-50

21.5%

College/ University

39.5%

100-1667

0%20%

Figure 4: Academic qualification andearthquake as the most affecting disaster

20%

25%

30%

35%

0%

40%

Figure 5: Relation between income group andrespondent who have retrofitted the house

10%

15%

p

20%

25%

q
49%

3333-8333

49%

>3280
Cost of house(US$)

Composition of respondents consideringstrengthening cost of their houses ranging
between US $ 3333-8333 and more in
relation to cost of self built house ispresented in Figure 7 which shows that
tendency of estimated strengthening costmore than US$ 3280 is more within groupwith high cost of self built house. Although
in most cases, estimated such cost is either
equal or more than the actual cost of the
respondent’s house even less initial cost.

5%

Figure 6: Academic qualification andretrofitting as the plan for safer house

1640-3280

30%

61%
63%

820-1640
410-820

68%

16%

<410

61%

20%

0%

20%

40%

>8333

24%

60%

80%

100%

Figure 7: Cost of house and expected cost of
retrofitting

House Builders/ Head Masons
Total of 37 house builders and 13 head masons were interviewed from Islamabad, Lahore,Faisalabad, Multan, Sahiwal and some interior villages of Punjab and Northwestern Frontier
province working in various companies and groups. Only two builders were qualified engineers andthe rest have ten years of school education whereas most of masons have basic reading and writing
skills. Mostly builders/ head masons (94%) provide services either on labor contract or labor andmaterial contract. Builders and masons who think that most contributing factors to loss of lives in4

case of earthquake would be house collapse is almost 90%. Response to this question shows theawareness of the builders about the vulnerability of dwellings people are living in. Only 4 %builders/ masons have received any formal training about earthquake resistant construction because
in Pakistan there is no system or law of licensing, registration or training of builders/ head masons.
Similarly, about using building code or construction guidelines, 28 % builders/ head masons havebeen applying its provisions in building construction and the rest 72 % have either never heard
about such details or just heard but don’t know details. There are 4% of builders/ masons who know
these details but not using in construction considering impractical. It is important to mention that forordinary house construction there is no legislation for application and adoption of building codeneither in design nor in construction practices. Majority of respondent (38%) expect government todevelop a proper licensing system and carry out training programs on earthquake resistantconstruction, to ensure rained masons. One of the major difficulties that 17 builders/ masonsmentioned is homeowners resist as they don’t want to pay extra cost for making an earthquake
resistant house. Almost 38 % of overall respondents consider retrofitting feasible; on the other hand
42 % are those who either consider retrofitting impossible or not viable. The rest 20% don’t know
about retrofitting at all. These responses give a clear picture of the lack of awareness of builders/masons about retrofitting who are responsible for construction of 90 % houses.
Central Government Officers
Total of eight officers were interviewed who are well aware of the aftermaths of the 2005 Kashmir
Earthquake as most of them are directly or indirectly involved in reconstruction and disastermanagement activities or policy making. Almost half of the respondents anticipate immediate threat
whereas the others either don’t know or do not anticipate a near future earthquake. Except two
officers who do not have any idea about highest anticipated loss of lives all others anticipate
casualties in millions and thousands, in case of a future earthquake. As majority considers poor
construction of buildings as the most contributing underlying factor to earthquake disasters inPakistan and the main causes for vulnerable building stock are ranked as lack of building
enforcement system, economic conditions of people leading not to able to afford good material andtechnology, lack of awareness among public and lack of appropriate technical know-how.
Considering the available resources/capacity and prevailing risk situation four of the officers
prioritize need for building code enforcement as the pre-disaster measures for the earthquake safety
whereas the rest give priority to other risk management policies. Further, they recommend strong
legislation, public awareness scheme, training of building control staff and financial support tohouse owners for effective implementation of building control system in the country.
Local Government Officers
Twenty five Local government officers working in different cities and districts of province Punjab,
Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Northwestern Frontier Province, have been interviewed. Officers
working in Punjab face flood as frequent disaster in the area of their domain whereas others haveexperienced the 2005 Kashmir Earthquake and/or participated in relief and reconstruction activities.
Local government officers who expect a big earthquake within few years and within ten years
constitute 48% and all officers anticipate large casualty and buildings collapse in case a big
earthquake hit the area. Two third of the respondents believe that vulnerable building stock due tobad construction practices, is the most contributing earthquake risk factor to city. Almost 20%
considers lack of mitigation efforts and 8% opted for the vulnerable life line structures, in thisregard. Further majority of the officers (56%) believe that homeowners cannot afford to have goodmaterials and utilize earthquake resistant technologies, which is the most critical cause for5vulnerable building stock. Whereas 28% believe, lack of appropriate technical know how andinaccessibility to such techniques of the house owners are the critical causes for vulnerable
buildings. All officers believe that a building permit system exists in their cities principally andbuilding code implementation is supposed to be a part of that system but unwillingness of the public
to follow the building code is the major issue for effective implementation of the building code.
Most of them believe that builders/petty contractors and masons can contribute more to improvebuilding safety as most of the housing stock is constructed by them.

CONCLUSIONSThe study has revealed a clear difference in perceptions about future earthquake risks and minor
differences in mitigation efforts done so far or planned to do in future, between people of the twoareas perception; one which was hit by the earthquake having relatively high risk perception ascompared to other which is quite far from the earthquake prone area. Similarly finding of the survey
shows there are different level of understandings of people belonging different income groups,
academic qualification and disaster experience. Therefore, objectives of awareness raising should
differentiate between target groups focusing their understanding level, role and importance inhousing construction, affordability, accessibility and acceptability. The 2005 Kashmir Earthquake
has created a consciousness among all stake holders involved in housing construction in Pakistan.
This potential needs to be utilized in an optimum way as people can forget such experiences very
quickly. Therefore it is necessary to preserve data, facts and lesson learnt by the earthquake tocommunicate and disseminate knowledge and wisdom gained with communities. For this purpose,
an institute is proposed which can share the effects of the 2005 Kashmir Earthquake and promotedisaster risk mitigation within communities following the pattern of Disaster Reduction Institute(DRI), Kobe which offers programs by which visitors can learn the effects of the Great HanshinAwaji Earthquake and lessons learned from the experience that should be shared with younger
generations. This gives inspiration to the visitors for realizing the disastrous impacts of earthquake
and motivation to adopt measure for safer environments. Further, DRI is involved in research andtraining programs promoting social preparedness against possible major disasters in and outside
Japan. These conclusions may be very helpful in planning mitigation programs and publicawareness campaigns in Pakistan and regions with similar characteristics as well.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Masahiko Murata (DRI, Japan) and Mr. Najib
Ahmed (Preston University, Pakistan) for providing useful data, support and cooperation during myindividual study.

REFERENCES
Kenji Okazaki, 2008, Study on Risk Perception concerning Housing Safety agaianst EarthquakeEAROPH , Seismic Risk Perception of People for Safer Housing, 14th World Conference on
Earthquake Engineering, 2008, Beijing, China
Najib Ahmed, 2007, Report on Disater Risk Reduction, Preston University
Websites, www.nha.gov.pk, http://web.worldbank.org/, , www.dri.net.jp, www.erra.gov.pk,

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