IRIN
PAKISTAN: One month after earthquake and 500,000 still without shelter
8 November 2005


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United 
Nations]

MUZAFFARABAD, 8 November (IRIN) - One month after the earthquake that 
devastated northern Pakistan and has killed at least 73,000, some half a 
million people are still without shelter. For the aid agencies it has 
become a race against time to reach remote mountain villages with 
shelter kits and tents before the bitter Himalayan winter descends. If 
snow falls before aid gets to survivors, Pakistan could be facing 
another humanitarian crisis with thousands of deaths.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 
on Tuesday the UN Flash Appeal is currently just 15 percent funded, with 
USD $85 million of $550 million committed. In addition there are $49 
million in unconfirmed pledges, which if confirmed, will bring the total 
response to 24 percent.

UN agencies and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have 
forecast a current shortfall of $42.4 million needed to carry out the 
most immediate life-saving activities during the month of November 
alone, without which many programmes will have to close. Funding is 
desperately needed for shelter, camp management, logistics and early 
recovery.

Some 3.5 million people were affected by the earthquake, which measured 
7.5 on the Richter scale, across an area of 30,000 sq km. Most 
hospitals, schools and government buildings were destroyed. Landslides 
have blocked roads, rockslides are a constant danger and villages 
perched high on isolated mountain ranges and deep in remote valleys mean 
hundreds of thousands of survivors have still not received aid.

The IOM says the emergency shelter situation has improved, with tents 
donated by the international humanitarian community totalling some 
132,000 and an additional 241,000 provided by the Pakistani government. 
But the IOM says even survivors with tents are still in danger, as the 
equipment must be winterised and able to withstand the harsh onslaught 
of rain, wind and snow.

The IOM is also trying to distribute shelter repair kits, which allow 
people to salvage the remains of their homes. For residents of villages 
above 1,524 metres this is lifesaving equipment as many of their 
settlements will become cut off and inaccessible in the coming weeks as 
the winter snows arrive.

"Getting shelter up to the mountains and gearing up to deliver shelter 
is a top priority as the roads are cut and this is the high-risk area," 
said Annika Timonen, IOM Emergency Coordinator. The IOM and the 
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) 
have planned Operation Winter Race, a programme aiming to deliver 10,000 
shelter repair kits to highland villages before the worst of the winter.

But it is not only survivors in remote mountain valleys who are without 
shelter. One month on, many survivors in the city of Muzaffarabad, the 
destroyed capital of Pakistani Kashmir, have still not received tents.

Tariq Eqbal, a civil engineer, has been sleeping next to the ruins of 
his house in the Bagh area of Muzaffarabad. Once home to government 
workers and wealthy residents, all that remains now is a tangle of 
devastation, with rubble blocking the streets.

"We've no tent and there's not enough drinking water," said Eqbal. "We 
have to travel 5 km to a mountain spring for water." Eqbal lost his 
mother in the earthquake and many of his neighbours were buried beneath 
their collapsed homes.

Mounds of crumbled ruins are all that remain of most of Muzaffarabad, 
and in the town centre the smell of dead bodies still hangs thick in the 
air.

"We know that there is a family buried under there," said Imran Alishah, 
a stallholder in the city's Medina market. "I know they were sleeping 
above their stall when the earthquake struck, but how can we get them 
out?" he said, holding a scarf to his nose to block the stench. Two 
nearby buildings toppled on the stall, leaving a gigantic mess of 
bricks, shattered glass and metal. The stallholders of Medina say there 
are many bodies still buried there.

"I still haven't got a tent for my family and water and food is a 
problem, otherwise I would try to get help to get the bodies of my 
friends out of here," said Alishah.

Alishah has been sleeping near the ruins of his house with his family. 
"Out in the open under the stars is where we've been sleeping," he says. 
"It's cold, but we're getting used to it now, although we're scared 
about winter coming. We need to get a tent before then otherwise we 
won't survive."

In Jalalabad Park a camp has sprung up with rudimentary toilet 
facilities - plastic curtains hiding holes in the ground. Many survivors 
here have erected shelters out of pieces of wood, corrugated iron and 
detritus salvaged from the ruins of the city. Razian Bibi sleeps in one 
such hut measuring no more than 3 metres by 2 metres, sharing this tiny 
space with nine others. "I have four children and I have no blankets for 
them," she said, stirring a pot of lentils on a stove made out of an 
upturned oil can with wood as fuel. "It's cold and we need a tent."

Residents like Bibi are scared the government will make them leave the 
park as this camp is not officially recognised. "They said that we will 
have to move to another camp, but with my four little children, moving 
is hard, we want to stay here," said Bibi.

The number of camps in Muzaffarabad is not known, as most are 
'spontaneous' areas where residents have gathered and put up tents and 
makeshift shelters. One aid worker said there were over 17, but as most 
of these camps are not official, residents face evacuation.

British charity Oxfam warned this week of a looming health crisis in the 
tented camps.

"Unless conditions are improved in these camps, diseases like cholera 
could spread like wildfire," Oxfam's earthquake relief head, Jane 
Cockin, said. "If disease does break out in the camps, the number of 
deaths could far exceed those in danger in their villages."

The cold has resulted in a surge in acute respiratory infections, with 
much worse to come in the next few weeks if the shelter situation is not 
resolved, said Dr Khalid Shibib, head of the World Health Organization 
(WHO) in Muzaffarabad.

The priority for the WHO, as with many aid agencies, is reaching 
survivors in isolated valleys and highlands before they become 
inaccessible due to winter snow.

"Respiratory infections are from the cold, from a lack of shelter, and 
you can die from it," Shibib said. The earthquake destroyed 41 percent 
of all hospitals, as well as most rural health centres. More than 75,000 
people were injured and are in need of urgent medical or surgical care.

Now Shibib warns that poor sanitation, lack of safe drinking water and 
inadequate shelter could pose a threat of disease. There have so far 
been cases of diarrhoea and the health ministry says there have been 
some 1,130 cases of dysentery, 139 cases of tetanus, of whom 41 have 
died, and several deaths from measles.

"The health picture now is less and less injuries from the earthquake 
and more and more communicable diseases," Shibib said.

Some 790,000 children aged between five and 18 years are estimated to 
have been affected by the earthquake and 10,000 schools damaged or 
destroyed. Assessments by the education ministry have highlighted the 
need for tents to serve as temporary schools as well as training 25,000 
new teachers.

But with worsening conditions, the threat of disease outbreaks and the 
desperate need for basic provisions, such as tents, a severe lack of 
funds is impeding the aid effort. Some say the poor donor response is a 
result of 'donor fatigue' due to a recent glut of natural catastrophes, 
such as Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami, leaving donor countries 
feeling financially drained.

The Pakistani government announced it will start compensation payments 
of about $416 per family for the loss of their homes, but survivors say 
they just want shelter.

"All I need is a tent," said Alishah.

"I just want to appeal to the international community to help us. We 
know that they have given a lot of money to the tsunami, but all we ask 
is that they don't forget about us," he pleaded. "Otherwise we'll die in 
the cold."


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
2005


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