Government pledge €1m to help earthquake victims
On the first anniversary of the Pakistan earthquake the Irish government has announced funding of €1m to support the ongoing recovery effort.
The powerful seven-point-six magnitude quake struck along the country's border with India on this day last year, killing more than 70-thousand people in the poverty-stricken and isolated region.
Trocaire's Orla Fagan, who works in Pakistan, said the disaster has brought some benefits, with the influx of aid agencies meaning other issues are now being tackled.
"It is going through a transitional phase at the moment and onto the development stage,” she said. “You're talking about a particularly poor region anyway in Pakistan, so people would have suffered one way or the other. Now that the agencies here, they're beginning to look at long term development.”
