IRIN
PAKISTAN: Quake survivors lead bleak life in camps
14 March 2007


MUZAFFARABAD, 14 March 2007 (IRIN) - An old, bearded man launched an 
angry tirade at aid agency officials who had come to visit a 
quake-displaced community living in tents in Muzaffarabad, the capital 
of Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

"We have had no water, no electricity for weeks," he shouted. "There are 
no bathrooms and people are falling sick in the cold and rain."

Nearly a year and a half after a devastating earthquake ripped through 
northwest Pakistan, survivors say that living in shelters, whether 
tented or pre-fabricated, can be unbearable at times.

"The organisers try to help us as much as they can but sometimes 
conditions can be very rough and we face many problems - such as these 
open drains which pass very close to our tents," an old woman, who 
declined to give her name, said from her tent.

Parents say their children struggle with cramped living quarters, poor 
hygiene and makeshift educational facilities.

"I'm not happy here. My children do not have any space to themselves and 
we worry about their education," another old man said.

In a little 'village square' formed by a nexus of several rows of tents, 
octogenarian Roshan Bibi remonstrated with an aid agency official she 
had mistaken for a doctor.

"It is bitterly cold and my daughter, who has four children, is not 
well. I want you to take a look at her," she exclaimed.

Resettling the displaced

The 7.6 magnitude earthquake that shook northwestern Pakistan on 8 
October 2005 left more than 80,000 people dead, tens of thousands of 
others injured and more than three million people homeless. Hundreds of 
thousands of quake survivors were put in tents or other temporary 
shelters.

According to the United Nations, about 35,000 of them continue to live 
in 48 tented camps across Pakistani-administered Kashmir, the hardest 
hit region, as well as parts of the adjacent North West Frontier 
Province (NWFP) of Pakistan.

Yasir Josh, assistant manager of Al Harmain camp, said the biggest 
conundrum facing the government, as well as aid agencies, is how to 
resettle the displaced.

"Some of these people are landless and have nowhere to go. Others might 
have land but they fall in the red zone - areas designated as dangerous 
by experts because they are prone to landslides," Josh said, adding that 
a phased plan had been drawn up by authorities to help relocate quake 
victims by the end of March 2007.

"It is going to be difficult to resettle these people," said Naseer 
Ahmed Awan, president of the Jammu Kashmir Welfare Association, a local 
NGO. "Where are they going to go once they have to leave these camps? At 
least here they have shelter and access to schools and medical 
treatment," he said.

According to Rehman Awan, a social mobilisation specialist with the UN 
Human Settlements Programme (UN HABITAT) in Muzaffarabad, there is still 
much to be done to provide landless families with an alternative choice 
of future residence.

"According to one government estimate, there are still about 1,200 
landless families that have nowhere to go. Yet nothing is being done to 
help these people," he said.


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