Bomb-proof, earthquake-resistant and cheap: Thousands of Pakistanis are choosing to hunker down in caves northwest of Islamabad, snapping up the hobbit-like homes amid a nationwide housing shortage.
Located about 60km from Pakistan’s capital, nearly 3,000 people live in caves in the village of Hasan Abdal, said Councilor Haji Abdul Rasheed — whose own home is among the dwellings carved into the rugged, earthen hillside embankments.
Rasheed’s spartan cave — or buray as it is locally known — consists of a few minimally furnished rooms complemented by a veranda.
Photo: AFP
The caves are usually dug by hand, with residents using clay to plaster the walls — a practice that serves as a bulwark against landslides, they say.
“There is nothing like it. If you build a mud house, it collapses during the rains. This does not collapse,” Rasheed said. “It’s earthquake-proof and bomb-proof.”
Although locals have been living in caves for at least five centuries since the area was settled by a Mughal tribe, a surge in housing prices has renewed the appetite for the cavernous homes, which cost much less than their urban counterparts.
“We bought this because it’s cheaper... We dug it ourselves,” Ameer Ullah Khan said.
The modern-day cave dwellers say that the structures are also ideally suited to Pakistan’s weather — staying cool as summertime temperature soar past 40°C and providing a warm cocoon during the area’s chilly winters.
“We mostly spend our summers here ... using the caves as our residence and to store our belongings, including our wheat and corn harvest,” said Mohammed Sohail, who lives elsewhere the rest of the year.
Life is not all easy: Lacking sufficient natural light, the caves rely on electricity cabled in from outside to power TV sets and mobile phones, while indoor plumbing is a rare luxury.
However, with cave prices averaging at about 40,000 rupees (US$298) compared with brick homes that start at about 250,000 rupees, locals and property experts say they are much more affordable than other rural options.
“Even in the countryside, you need at least half a million rupees to get a small piece of land to build a house,” real-estate agent Sakhi Riaz said.
The lower costs have allowed some residents to splurge on extras, from rose gardens to terraced fruit orchards.
One local has even gone so far as to build an huge residential complex to host hundreds of devotees who flock to the area for religious festivities.
The humble abodes are seen as an increasingly attractive option as Pakistan battles a dearth of affordable housing, with the nation’s rapidly growing population hovering at about 207 million.
Newly elected Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has vowed to address the crisis by building as many as 5 million homes, even as an ongoing financial crisis has raised questions about how he will pay for it.
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