Unlocking the Pakistan Earthquake of 2005 through the Lens of Vulnerability

Based on “Pressure and Release” (PAR) model, this chapter explains how disaster risk is a function of both a natural hazard and the vulnerability of the population affected. Focusing on the deadliest disaster in the history of Pakistan till date, the earthquake of 2005, the chapter argues that the earthquake, which was triggered by natural hazard, an M w 7.6 on the Richter scale, got converted to a disaster at the interface of societal structure and hazardous mountainous environments. The pre-existing societal vulnerability contributed to the disparities in impacts and eventually to differential recovery and reconstruction in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), the epicentre of the earthquake. The chapter underlines that vulnerability is not uniformly distributed; it is a socially constructed phenomenon.