ISLAMABAD: Institutions have done nothing to prepare for future disasters even after the 2005 earthquake, members of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication said on Monday.

At a meeting at Parliament House, Senator Shahzad Waseem said that although alerts are generated before disasters, the response afterwards is weak and leads people to suffer during floods and other such incidents.

“The time has come to learn from blunders. During the 2005 earthquake, there was no coordination among different institutions due to which not only were a number of girls kidnapped but families were separated because helicopters lifted one or two members of a family and others were left behind,” he said.

There were no arrangements for the increase in hospital patients after disasters either, he said, while hospitals in Pakistan already lack beds.

Committee chair Senator Rubina Khalid, who contributed to rehabilitation activities after the 2005 earthquake, agreed with Senator Waseem and said she had even observed patients in the capital in miserable condition.

She added: “A number of foreign medical teams came to Pakistan in 2005 and they carried out skin grafting [procedures] but paramedics were not aware that hydrogen peroxide is not applied to grafted skin. Even MBBS doctors were not aware of how to resuscitate patients.”

Senator Kalsoom Parveen suggested adopting the Turkish model to deal with disasters.

Senator Rehman Malik said it was unfortunate that people suffer in the face of monsoon flooding every year.