Pakistanis at Stanford (PAS) will hold a meeting today with the Office of Student Activities in hopes of starting a campus-wide drive to raise money for victims of the worst earthquake in Pakistan’s history that struck near the Pakistan-India border on Saturday, Oct. 8 with a magnitude measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale.

Junior Uzair Nasim, a member of PAS, has taken charge of coordinating relief efforts throughout the campus. A meeting took place Saturday where members shared initial ideas about how to structure and carry out the drive, but Nasim said he expects today’s meeting to be much more formal.

“It is all at a very preliminary stage,” he said.

Several of the organizations that Nasim hopes to get in contact with are the Haas center for Public Service, the Muslim Students Awareness Network, the Islamic Society of Stanford University and the Hidaya Foundation.

Nasim plans to model his efforts after the tsunami relief drive that took place last year. He will be asking for donations and collaborating with other student groups with the aim of eventually receiving matching grants from the University Provost’s Office.

For now, the main goal is to raise as much money as possible. Nasim said that he is working on setting up a Web site where students can obtain information about making fiscal contributions or helping out in other ways. Later on, he hopes to go from dorm to dorm and set up a booth in White Plaza. Once more specific needs are known, Nasim and others will be taking donations such as books, medicine, clothes and other supplies — but there is currently a lack of information about exactly what people need most.

“Most of the relief efforts are being hampered by the fact that the majority of the area hit by the quake is rural,” said sophomore Muzammal Ashraf, a PAS member. “The terrain isn’t very easy for relief efforts either.”

Ashraf, who is from Lahore, Pakistan, said that downed communication systems are also causing many problems. One friend of his, who is from Mansera but lives in Lahore, was unable to reach his family and decided to head straight for the village. Telephone lines are down in most northern areas, and he still does not know whether his family is safe.

Nasim emphasized that right now there is no actual relief effort on campus, and that his plans are still fairly tentative. He is confident, however, that the effort will be arranged and active very soon.

“If it looks disorganized that’s only because people are still trying to put things together,” he said. “It will just take a few days to organize everything.”