IOM has started a rubble removal and
recycling programme to help the local authorities to remove some 16
million cubic feet of earthquake debris in Muzaffarabad, the
capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Six months after the October 2005 earthquake,
Muzaffarabad remains a sea of rubble and damaged buildings. The IOM
project, funded by USAID, will pay local people to clear and
recycle rubble on site, demolish severely damaged houses and
transport the remaining debris to a recycling site.

"This will employ skilled and unskilled local
labour, using dumping trucks and heavy machinery to speed up the
process of rubble removal and bring forward the reconstruction
process," says Brian Kelly, IOM Pakistan Head of Emergency
Operations and Programmes.

"With an integrated rubble removal strategy,
the recycled debris can also be used as gravel, concrete and for
filling hard-wire gabion nets to strengthen roadsides and
riverbanks," he observes.

The project, which IOM will implement in close
coordination with the federal and district authorities, the
sanitation department of Muzaffarabad's municipal corporation, the
private sector and the Engineering Corps of the Pakistan Army, will
focus on three of eleven badly-affected zones identified in the
government reconstruction plan for the city.

As well as providing jobs and encouraging
people to rebuild, the project will also have a positive
environmental impact, ending private fly tipping of rubble on the
banks of the Neelum and Jhelum rivers that flow through the heart
of the once picturesque city.

For more information, please contact:

Saleem Rehmat

IOM Islamabad

Tel. +92.300.856.5967

Email: "mailto:srehmat@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">srehmat@iom.int