Rain compounds misery for quake survivors
Rains compounded the misery of millions of homeless victims a week after Pakistan’s worst earthquake and briefly grounded relief flights, while a fresh consignment of aid arrived from archrival India with much-needed medicine and tents.
The showers today were predicted to become heavy, which could disrupt efforts to provide food and shelter to an estimated two million people lacking shelter ahead of the harsh Himalayan winter.
Downpours earlier in the week grounded helicopters and stopped trucks loaded with relief supplies.
Four helicopters, two from the International Red Cross and two from the Pakistan army, landed in the devastated Kashmiri city of Muzaffarabad this morning, and army spokesman Maj. Farooq Nasir said the relief operation was on but could change with the weather.
More delays could be catastrophic. Seven days after the monster 7.6 magnitude quake – believed to have killed more than 35,000 people – many outlying villages have still seen no aid. UNICEF warned that thousands of children are at risk of death from cold, malnutrition and disease.
The UN agency said early half of those affected by last weekend’s quake are under 18 and that the international relief effort must focus on keeping children alive in the weeks ahead.
“With wintry conditions arriving in the higher elevations, children are facing a potentially deadly combination of cold, malnutrition, and disease,” UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said in a statement.
Early today, a magnitude-5 aftershock struck, but there were no immediate reports of damage or further injury.
Rescue workers abandoned the official search yesterday for survivors trapped in the rubble, though individual efforts continued, with an 18-month-old girl reportedly pulled out alive from the ruins of her home.
A doctor, Mazhar Hussain, told Pakistan’s GEO television and the BBC that his rescue team had pulled the toddler, unconscious but alive, from unde the door of her collapsed house, which had protected her. Her mother and two brothers were found dead nearby, but her father survived.
“Her right hand is broken and she has a fracture in her left leg,” the doctor said on GEO, speaking from Balimang in North-West Frontier Province, where the girl was found.
Jan Egeland, the UN under-secretary-general and emergency relief co-ordinator, said the search-and-rescue phase was now over. “It’s a cruel reality. But after a week, very few people survive,” he said.
Egeland, who travelled to hard-hit areas, said he feared bottlenecks of relief supplies.
“If we don’t work together, we will become a disaster within a disaster,” he said. He said it would take billions of dollars and “five to 10 years” to rebuild.
A train carrying relief goods donated by neighbouring India for the victims of earthquake in Pakistan arrived in the eastern city of Lahore late Friday – the latest gesture of friendship between the erstwhile enemies. India has also suffered more than 1,350 deaths in the quake.
The aid included 12 tons of medicine, five tons of plastic sheets, 5,000 blankets and 370 tents. It was the second consignment of humanitarian aid from India, following relief goods sent earlier by plane.
The aftershock felt early today, and centred 78 miles north of Islamabad in the region worst hit by the initial quake, is one of more than 500 afterhocks over the past week.
“They’re going to continue,” warned Waverly Person, a seismologist with the US National Earthquake Centre in Colorado. “This was a big event.”
Most of Pakistan’s deaths were in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, where snow has started to fall in some areas.
The country’s relief commissioner, Maj. Gen. Farooq Ahmad Khan, said Pakistan expected to get two million blankets and 100,000 large tents before the onset of winter. He said 200,000 houses had been destroyed.
Lt. Col. Waheed from Pakistan’s army aviation said the rains grounded flights for about 30 minutes early today before resuming.
The choppers are ferrying relief supplies and bringing back injured people – many suffering infected wounds that haven’t been properly treated for a week.
Pakistan’s information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, said helicopters from other nations – including the United States, Germany and Afghanistan – had helped save 6,000 injured people.
Yesterday, 45 helicopters flew a total of 80 sorties, he said.
The US military has deployed 13 helicopters to Pakistan, and has begun dropping relief supplies by air from C-130 transport planes.
Dozens of countries have donated money and aid.
The United Nations yesterday increased its emergency appeal to nearly $312m.
It said helicopters, heavy lifting equipment, winterised tents, field hospitals and medicine are still desperately needed.
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