OCHA Situation Report No. 27
South Asia - Earthquake
9 December 2005


Pakistan

SITUATION OVERVIEW

It is estimated that a minimum of 2.5 million people are now living in 
tents or in emergency/ transitional shelters below 5000ft. There are 
still 350,000- 400,000 people remaining at 'risk areas' in higher 
elevations.

Although the Pakistan military continues to plan for larger numbers, the 
Federal Relief Commissioner (FRC) estimates that fewer than 100,000 
people will move to lower elevations and are expected to relocate by 10 
December or not at all.

Contingency planning for mass-migration is currently underway with 
clusters having already established groups in the field to confirm 
planning assumptions, as well as conduct risk assessments, caseload 
verification and stockpile mapping in close collaboration with local 
civil authorities.

In Batagram area, between 300-500 people per day appear to be moving 
down, which is a rate that can be currently absorbed. In Balakot, a 
significant reduction in migration patterns has been indicated. In 
Muzaffarabad, it seems that the population is not keen on moving down. 
In Bagh, there are no signs of population movements.

According to the Government, currently there are 502 camps in North West 
Frontier Province and Pakistan Administered Kashmir with a total 
population of 187,506. Out of this number, 30 are planned camps with a 
population of 36,000 people and are supported by the camp management 
cluster.

Out just over 2.5 million people in need of food assistance, 1 million 
will be covered by WFP, 1.5 million by the Government and 150,000 by 
ICRC.

The greatest threat to the general health situation is the poor 
sanitation situation in spontaneous camps. FRC has tasked the Minister 
of Health to improve the sanitation conditions in these camps. Improving 
latrine quality is the main objective, as major concerns of the health 
cluster remain the lack of purification of water sources and hygiene 
education.

Provision of corrugated iron sheets (CGI) remains a priority. There is a 
shortage of CGIs in Pakistan, which has resulted in price increases. 
Several agencies are looking into the option of importing CGI sheeting. 
Clarification still needs to be obtained on whether such shipments fall 
within the customs waivers granted by the Government of Pakistan for the 
relief effort. UNJLC is investigating the matter.

Access to the affected areas will be severely hampered as winter 
conditions worsen. Although good weather conditions for incoming flights 
this week have been reported from Muzaffarabad, the overall logistics 
planning assumption is that there will be a loss of one third of total 
flying days due to adverse weather conditions and that the tertiary 
roads will shortly be inaccessible. This would increase dependence on 
more basic transportation means such as mules.

To date, NATO has transported 2,936.4 tons of relief goods. NATO has 
moved 741,8 tons of bilateral donations via 24 flights and 2,156.6 tons 
of UN donations via 129 flights, as well as 1 military flight carrying a 
helicopter from Luxembourg for UN purposes. The total value of the 
air-bridge until today is estimated at more than EUR 15 million.

Funding

Committed contributions to the UN Flash Appeal, as of 8 December, have 
reached US$ 209.1 million (38%) out of the US$550 million requested. A 
total of US$22.7 million has been pledged. This brings the total 
contributions and pledges to US$231.8 million (42,2% of the requested 
amount).

Most of the cluster lead agencies are expressing concern that unless 
pledges continue to be made, emergency operations will be seriously 
hampered. Logistics and Health Clusters have projects on standby that 
are entirely dependent on the materialization of pledged money.

CLUSTER UPDATES

Highlights

|-----------+------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|
|Cluster    |Key priorities                |Key achievements/plans                          |
|-----------+------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|
|Emergency  |Provision of self-help shelter|Formulation of the winterisation strategy and   |
|Shelter    |repair materials, related NFIs|the Technical Guidelines for winterisation.     |
|           |for heating and winterisation |35,000 self-help shelter kits distributed under |
|           |of tents for communities in   |'Winter Race'.                                  |
|           |the 5000-7000 ft zone,        |'Winter Race' coverage above 5000 ft appears to |
|           |provision of emergency self   |be 100% complete.                               |
|           |help kits in lower            |17,600 stoves installed with more than 68,000 in|
|           |inaccessible highland zones.  |pipeline.                                       |
|-----------+------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|
|Health     |Preventing evolvement of Acute|100 basic Health Units and 20 Rural Health      |
|           |Respiratory Infections (ARI)  |Centres to be provided with prefabricated       |
|           |into complex pneumonia.       |structures before January 15th.                 |
|           |                              |Establishment of two new field hospitals, one in|
|           |                              |Allai Valley and the other in Neelum Valley.    |
|           |                              |Total number of foreign field hospitals now     |
|           |                              |stands at 18.                                   |
|-----------+------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|
|Camp       |Camp maintenance,             |Emergency response units in field hubs that are |
|Management |interisation and contingency  |responsible for cleanup and decongesting have   |
|           |camp planning for winter.     |been established.                               |
|           |                              |19 mobile teams have been deployed to date.     |
|           |                              |Distributed 526,000 blankets, trained military  |
|           |                              |and civil authorities in camp management        |
|           |                              |techniques.                                     |
|           |                              |Prepared contingency plans for best-case        |
|           |                              |scenario with expected numbers of additional    |
|           |                              |people in camps - 30,000; most likely scenario -|
|           |                              |60,000; and worst case scenario - 150,000.      |
|-----------+------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|
|Logistics  |Securing the shipment of      |UNJLC, on behalf of UNHAS/WFP, has approached   |
|           |additional helicopter nets to |NATO and the Swiss government to provide such   |
|           |allow for swing load          |equipment. WFP is investigating commercial      |
|           |operations is deemed          |options as well.                                |
|           |essential- as is the          |There are currently 20 nets in use, 20 more nets|
|           |procurement of de-icers to    |arrived on the 5th of December and 50 more have |
|           |ensure minimum time is wasted |been procured.                                  |
|           |in helicopter startup.        |                                                |
|-----------+------------------------------+------------------------------------------------|


EMERGENCY SHELTER CLUSTER

1.  Key issues are land tenure and winterization of tents in spontaneous 
settlements and camps. Accelerated distribution of non-food items 
(NFIs), particularly of plastic sheeting, CGIs, blankets and stoves is 
required.

2.  A key challenge is to continue 'Winter Race' in areas above 5000ft 
and to re-direct 'Winter Race' to vulnerable areas below 5000ft.

LOGISTICS CLUSTER

3.  Requests for air cargo movements are expected to increase. UNHAS is 
predicting requests for up to 6,500 Metric Tonnes (MT) of food and 1,500 
MT of Non-Food Items (NFI) per month. The estimated deterioration of 
road conditions and the resulting increase in NFI air movement requests 
have been taken into account in calculating these numbers. Currently, 
the priority split food/NFI is fixed at 70% and 30% respectively. A 
prioritisation scheme by valley as opposed to an overall priority split 
is under discussion.

4.  Emergency repairs on the roads are not expected to ensure access 
through the winter. In the Neelum Valley, two landslides are reported 
near Batmang and Naseri. In the Kagan Valley, rockslides are reported 
near Karai, Paras and Jareed. traffic is reduced to one-way in various 
locations causing delays.

5.  In line with the need to establish helipads, there are now 225 
potential sites identified for possible helipad sites from an initial 15 
sites.

HEALTH CLUSTER

6.  Reaching the populations above the snowline is an immediate 
challenge. Three health cluster partners have expressed willingness to 
work above the 5,000ft mark providing health care support throughout 
winter.

7.  Field hospitals are reporting fewer cases of trauma and the bed 
occupancy rate has dropped to 30%. However, inability of some patients 
to access hospitals could also explain the drop in numbers.  Overall, 
the health situation remained stable this week with no reported 
outbreaks of any major diseases.

8.  The considerable drop in temperatures and the onset of snow 
increased the incidence of Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) as 
expected. The goal now is to ensure that winterized shelter is provided 
in order to stop the ARI from developing into more complicated 
pneumonia. There has been one confirmed death of a three-month-old baby 
from pneumonia who had been left untreated at home.

9.  Isolated outbreaks of measles had been reported from the affected 
areas that were addressed by an extensive vaccination campaign that has 
curbed further spread.

10.  There is a need to start improving maternal and neo-natal health in 
Pakistan Administrated Kashmir that was dismal prior to the earthquake. 
The opportunity exists now to improve maternal heath services with 9 
service units providing facilities to pregnant women funded by UNFPA. 
However the lack of female staff is proving to be a challenge.

WATER AND SANITATION CLUSTER

11.  Forty percent of the overall population and 90% of the camp 
population are receiving safe water. 4,000 latrines have been installed, 
while 60,000 are in the pipeline.

EDUCATION CLUSTER

12.  The main priorities are to carry out teacher training to encourage 
the return of the teaching staff to schools, and to build field level 
capacity for the implementation and enhancement of cluster coordination.

13.  There has been a gradual increase in the number of schools, however 
the pipeline would determine how many can be operational. 4,500 school 
tents are expected to be delivered shortly. 1,740 school-in-a-box kits 
have been delivered and additional 2,000 are in the pipeline and should 
be available by end of December.

14.  An increasing concern is the lack of education support to secondary 
school children and the need to address school feeding.

PROTECTION CLUSTER

15.  Only 39,000 people in need of protection have been registered to 
date since the government's capacity is greatly constrained in terms of 
human resources and equipment.

CAMP MANAGEMENT CLUSTER

16.  The cluster is taking steps for contingency planning for possible 
new influxes of people from high altitudes and new sites are being 
identified and prepared, while existing sites are being expanded to 
accommodate 50,000 additional people. Winterization of camps is also 
underway.

ENVIRONMENT

17.  According to the report of the natural resources expert deployed by 
OCHA/UNEP, there is a concern that firewood and timber required for 
shelter and house reconstruction could pose a threat to the scarce 
forest resources, and unsustainable exploitation of the limited forest 
resources would increase the risk of additional landslides, erosion and 
floods. Recommended actions to mitigate these risks include identifying 
local solutions to supply the displaced people in the tented villages 
with the appropriate energy (e.g. kerosene, electricity) and stoves and 
having experts advise and train NGOs in charge of the camp management in 
the appropriate energy and stove selection for a specific site and the 
proper handling of stoves and fuel.

GENERAL INFORMATION

18.  All detailed cluster information (meeting minutes, assessments, 
contact information etc.) is being posted on www.un.org.pk.

19.  The latest information on projects and funding for the Flash 
Appeal, and for the emergency overall, can be found on the Financial 
Tracking Service 
(http://ocha.unog.ch/fts/reports/reportlist.asp?section=CE&record_ID=688). 
Further information on earthquake appeals and funding is available on 
ReliefWeb
(http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc105?OpenForm&rc=3&emid=EQ-2005-000174-PAK).

20.  Contact details of focal points for information on in-kind and cash
contributions can be found at http://www.un.org.pk/earthquake05/

21.  OCHA will revert with further information as it becomes available.
This situation report, together with further information on ongoing
emergencies, is also available on the OCHA Internet Website at
http://www.reliefweb.int.

Tel.:  +41-22-917 12 34
Fax: +41-22-917 00 23
E-mail: ochagva@un.org

In case of emergency only: Tel. +41-22-917 20 10

Desk Officers:
  Ms. Merete Johansson, direct Tel. +41-22-9171694
  Mr. Anvar Munavvarov,  direct Tel.  +41-22 917 1669

Press contact:
  GVA - Ms. Elizabeth Byrs, direct Tel. +41-22-917 2653
  NYC - Ms. Stephanie Bunker, direct Tel. + 1-917 367 5126

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