The devastating earthquake that struck northern Pakistan and the disputed territory of Kashmir on October 8, 2005, killed approximately 75,000 people, injured 70,000 more, left an estimated 3.5 million people homeless, and devastated the basic infrastructure of a region the size of Belgium. Despite a daunting array of obstacles – inaccessible mountainous terrain, the onset of winter, the challenges of coordinating an unprecedented diversity of providers of humanitarian assistance, and the sheer numbers of people in humanitarian need – a wide range of local, national and international actors rose to the humanitarian challenge.
The objective of this study was not to conduct an evaluation of the earthquake response, but to learn from the perceptions of a wide range of aid recipients and providers in order to better understand and more effectively address some of the key challenges currently facing humanitarian action.
