In the autumn of 2005, the earth itself rose in wrath against the hills of Kashmir. On the eighth day of October, a mighty tremor of 7.6 magnitude shook the world from its centre near Muzaffarabad, nineteen kilometres to the northeast. Its fury swept across borders into Afghanistan, Tajikistan, India, and the distant reaches of Xinjiang. It proved the fifth deadliest natural disaster of that decade, leaving behind a trail of sorrow measured in lost lives and shattered homes. For months thereafter the ground continued to murmur. Catalogues would later record four hundred and ninety-seven aftershocks between October and the following March. In that testing time it became plain that strong buildings stood firm while the weak crumbled into dust.

A similar pattern of upheaval and lingering tremor has visited our region once more, though this time the convulsion has been wrought by the hand of man rather than the forces of nature. Late in February 2026, open conflict erupted between Iran and the United States, drawing Israel into the fray. Large-scale strikes targeted Iranian military installations, nuclear sites, and centres of command. Among the first and gravest losses was the martyrdom of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran answered with volleys of missiles and drones that lit the skies across the region. For weeks in March and April the fighting raged, claiming thousands of lives, chiefly in Iran and Lebanon, while merchant vessels trembled in the Strait of Hormuz and the flow of oil that sustains the world grew dangerously uncertain. Israel, Hezbollah, and others were drawn into the widening circle of strife.

A fragile calm appeared in mid-June when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed under American President Trump’s administration. The agreement promised an end to major operations, the reopening of the vital strait, and fresh talks on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Yet the truce proved short-lived. By the seventh and eighth of July it had collapsed. Iranian forces struck merchant shipping in the Hormuz passage; the United States responded with fresh airstrikes and the reimposition of a naval blockade. Iran in turn launched attacks on American and coalition positions in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. As July draws to a close, the exchanges continue – American strikes by night, Iranian retaliation by day or under cover of darkness – keeping the Gulf in a state of uneasy watchfulness.

Though the principal theatre lies far from our frontiers, the aftershocks have reached Pakistan with punishing regularity. The first great shock came in the early phase of the war when global oil prices soared. Petrol touched a historic peak of four hundred and fifty-eight rupees and forty-one paise per litre on the third of April. Diesel climbed even higher, to five hundred and twenty rupees and thirty-five paise. The embargo and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz sent ripples through every market and every household. For a time, as diplomatic efforts and mediation – including quiet contributions from Pakistan – eased the tension, prices began a cautious retreat. Yet the renewed fighting in July has overturned that fragile recovery. Once more the cost of fuel climbs, driven now as much by speculation as by actual shortage. The government, finding itself with little room to manoeuvre, has been compelled to adjust prices in anticipation of further trouble.

Our economy, propped up by loans from international institutions, feels these tremors more keenly than most. Each fresh rise in oil prices strikes at transport, industry, and the daily bread of ordinary citizens. The initial blow in April was severe; the daily aftershocks that have followed have kept the wound open. It is a pattern distressingly familiar to any who have lived through Pakistan’s recurrent crises – external storms that expose internal weaknesses.

One is reminded of lighter yet telling moments even in difficult times. In the days when the Daily Pakistan newspaper belonged to the late Akbar Bhatti, a reporter once burst into the Reporting room with word that Bhatti Sahib’s car had met with an accident. Before anyone could express concern, another seasoned journalist observed dryly that this doubtless meant salaries would be delayed that month. The remark, though wry, captured a larger truth; when those at the top stumble, the burden falls first and heaviest upon those below.

Pakistan has known many such seasons of trial – political, economic, and natural. Earthquakes both literal and figurative have tested our resilience. Yet each time the nation has gathered its strength, shored up its weak structures, and moved forward. The present difficulties in the Gulf, with their daily impact on our fuel prices and our fragile prosperity, are but another test. God willing, we shall emerge from them as we have from those that came before – perhaps not unscathed, but wiser, more united, and still standing. The strong foundations of national will and communal endurance have served us well in the past; they remain our surest hope for the future.