Pakistanis mourned victims of devastating earthquake on the 16 anniversary of the disaster that heavily jolted northern parts of the country on October 8, 2005.

At least 70,000 people lost their lives in the disaster that hit Azad Jammu Kashmir, Indian Occupied Kashmir, Islamabad and parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The National Resilience Day is being observed today across the country to express solidarity with the victims of 2005 earthquake, according to a report of Radio Pakistan.

Bereaved families and members of civil society organised a ceremony and held prayers to remember their relatives who died outside Margala Towers. Attendees also observed a one-minute silence in memory of the victims who died when the tower collapsed.

Residents of District Complex Rawla Kot also paid tribute to their loved ones on the anniversary of the disaster, while another gathering was held in Balakot Government High School, one of the K-P towns hardly hit by earthquake.

The 7.6-magnitude earthquake had hit the country and demolished 95 per cent infrastructure of Balakot. It also affected thousands of people in Muzaffarabad where houses, schools, colleges, offices, hospitals and markets turned into rubble. The disaster also disrupted lives of people in Bagh, Hazara and Rawlakot.

The earthquake also left at least 0.5 million people homeless.

Despite billions of rupees allocated for reconstruction of areas wrecked by the earthquake, on ground development did not reflect much improvement, according to a 2015 Dawn report.

After the disaster hit the country, Mansehra, one of the regions worst-affected by the Oct 8 earthquake – remained a top priority for the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra).

However, according to a report submitted in the Senate of the 266 development projects conceived for Mansehra, only 153 have progressed beyond the halfway mark.

A few days ago, families announced that they would block the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road today to protest the long delay in the allotment of plots at the New Balakot City project to them.

The groundbreaking of the New Balakot city housing project was performed in 2007 by the then military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, and it was scheduled to be completed in 2011, according to a Dawn report.

Sixteen years later, the families in Balakot were still living in makeshift homes.

Social media users also remembered the devastating earthquake and aftermath of the disaster.

Pakistan has a tragic history with earthquakes.

At least 20 people died and hundreds injured as a 5.9-magnitude earthquake hit parts of Balochistan in early hours of Thursday.