Musharraf, a keynote speaker on the second day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said the quake which devastated Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir also showed the importance of a leader being visible and in touch.

"The basic ingredient of a leader is that he should never panic, whatever the circumstances," the president told delegates at the annual gathering here of political and business leaders.

"No nation, no leader, can be expected to be fully prepared to meet major natural disasters," he went on, but when it happened, they had to assess the situation calmly "and chart a course of action without getting into panic."

Musharraf said the quake destroyed an area more than two thirds the size of Switzerland. It killed 73,000 people, affected 3.5 million and destroyed up to 500,000 homes as well as devastating key infrastructures such as schools and hospitals.

He outlined a six-point battle plan to cope with natural disaster:

- Assess the situation calmly;

- Create an implementation organisation;

- Select the right people to lead it;

- Formulate an overall strategy;

- Generate and place adequate resources for that organisation;

- Monitor the effectiveness of the strategy, tweaking where necessary.

"It's extremely important that the leader does not sit back. He must reach out to the people immediately," Musharraf said.

He said he had flown to the quake-hit region the morning after the shocks, to provide "some solace that I am with them. I think this went a long way to giving hope to the people."

Rescue operations lasted for around a month, along with longer-term relief work and, eventually, the start of the long reconstruction and rehabilitation phase.

Musharraf said money was given to people who had lost relatives or houses, or who had been injured. Cash was also directed so inhabitants could rebuild their own homes, this time making them quake-proof as far as possible.

"Within two months economic and business activity resumed."

Reconstruction of clinics began earlier this month, and Musharraf vowed to monitor the continuing efforts to restore the region.

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