He expressed his unhappiness over what he projected as the inadequate international response to the natural disaster in Pakistan, as compared with what he described as the generous response to the tragedy caused by the tsunami across South-East and South Asia last December. He insinuated that this was due to the fact that whereas a large number of Western tourists holidaying in the tsunami-affected countries were killed, the earth-quake in Pakistan has killed hardly any Western tourist. Thus, in his perception, the aftermath of the tsunami received greater attention in the West than the aftermath of the quake.
There were more human fatalities caused by the tsunami (over 100,000 in Aceh in Indonesia, over 20,000 in Sri Lanka, over 10,000 in South India and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India and over 5,000 in Thailand) than by the earth-quake (over 73,000 in Pakistan and about 1,400 in India's Jammu & Kashmir). However, the infrastructure damage caused by the tsunami was much less than the damage caused by the quake in Pakistan. The tsunami struck the coastal areas over a long belt, but the material damage was restricted to the fishing infrastructure, which could be speedily restored. Moreover, the areas affected by the tsunami were easily accessible by road, train, air and sea and remained so even after the tsunami struck. Providing humanitarian relief, therefore, did not pose colossal physical problems.
In Pakistan, the quake struck areas which were relatively inaccessible due to lack of development and the inaccessibility is almost total to many areas nearly a month after the quake. The physical barriers to humanitarian relief, therefore, remain immense. Moreover, whereas the weather did not come in the way of the humanitarian relief in the tsunami-affected areas, it has already come in the way in the mountainous areas in Pakistan and would continue to remain in the way till the winter, which is setting in, is over by March next.
In the tsunami-affected areas, the damage was largely to the social (schools and healh services) infrastructure and to the economy of the affected areas, which were largely dependent on fishing and tourism. Damage to the fishing industry is amenable to quick repair and restoration. There was little damage of a serious or permanet nature to the tourist infrastructure except possibly in the Maldives. The damage caused by the tsunami to tourism was more due to its psychological impact than to any damage to the infrastructure. Once the fears in the minds of the tourists disappeared, they started returning. The tsunami-affected areas did not suffer any damage to their strategic infrastructure.
The damage suffered by Pakistan is multi-dimensional as indicated below: