The last major urban earthquake to strike Pakistan prior to 2005 severely damaged the city of Quetta in 1935 and killed 35,000 people. In the last 70 years, although much progress has been made in studying the location of active faults and zones of seismicity in Pakistan, the general public in Pakistan has not yet fully understood or recognized the earthquake hazard.The near-destruction of two towns—Balakot in the North-West Frontier Province, and Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu Kashmir Province—and the deaths of more than 70,000 people caused by the 8 October 2005 Kashmir earthquake (Mw 7.6) led the government of Pakistan to request a scientific response and plan of action.

Accordingly the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) organized a recent international conference, which was attended by Pakistani scientists and participants from Austria, France, India, Iran, Japan,Turkey the United Kingdom, and the United States [Kausar et al., 2006].