According to a news report, 23 per cent of the buildings are unsafe for human occupancy while overall there is an acute housing shortage in the country. Some of the houses were weakened by earthquakes, some have outlived their lifespan, while many are endangered by the activities of the neighbouring dwellers. In the big cities multistoried buildings are being constructed with inferior materials that are prone to crumble under their own weight.

But in the smaller cities which are more likely to lack the necessary infrastructural groundwork, houses have to be built on the outskirts where the surrounding area is still being used for agricultural purposes and WAPDA 11kv distribution lines are passing at random through those fields. The owners of agricultural land are not willing to cede a few feet of ground next to the new building so that their irrigation water destroys the foundations of the newly constructed houses causing those buildings to start cracking early on