The 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck Pakistan on 8 October 2005, is widely regarded as the most devastating natural disaster in Pakistan’s history. The earthquake killed 73,338 people; more than 50% among them were children and women. It also seriously injured 69,412 and displaced 3.5 million people. About 30,000 sq. km area was affected across Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and North West Frontier Province (NWFP). In five districts of NWFP and four districts of AJK; public buildings, private housing, infrastructures, social services, livelihoods and businesses were damaged or destroyed.

Despite the large extent of damage and destruction, and the difficult geographical condition, Government of Pakistan has been responding to the needs of early response, recovery to long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation through its various organizational forums and with the support from many national and international organizations, UN Agencies and Donor Organizations. As of now, Pakistan has made significant progress on reconstruction and rehabilitation through systematic works carried out under the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA).

ERRA believes that the experiences gained and the lessons learned during this process have to be shared with the international community working for Earthquake Risk Management. Also, ERRA wants to get valuable critiques, comments, suggestions, inputs from experts for further improvement of the implementation so that such experiences can be incorporated into the long term disaster risk management framework of the country. Therefore this International Conference on Earthquake Risk Management (ICERM) is being organized by ERRA.