- Title: PAKISTAN: Most Pakistan quake tents can't withstand winter
- Date: 3rd December 2005
- Summary: (BN12) ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (DECEMBER 2, 2005) (REUTERS) WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE JOURNALISTS
- Embargoed: 18th December 2005 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Pakistan
- Country: Pakistan
- Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
- Reuters ID: LVA2TST9MNH4XHGATRZ4HBDNKYW4
- Story Text: Most of the tents handed out to Pakistani earthquake survivors are incapable of withstanding the winter and the focus of relief efforts is now on other ways to ensure people stay warm, aid officials said on Friday (December 2).
The Oct. 8 earthquake killed more than 73,000 people and left up to three million homeless. The worry as a brutal Himalayan winter sets in is that disease could kill cold and poorly nourished survivors.
"Keeping the people dry, keeping the people warm, well-fed and healthy remains a colossal job. The situation remains very difficult and actually we are on a knife's edge," chief U.N. humanitarian coordinator Jan Vandemoortele told a news conference in Pakistani capital Islamabad.
A huge aid effort involving Pakistani authorities, the United Nations, the Red Cross and numerous aid groups, has been trying to ensure survivors get proper shelter and adequate food to survive the winter.
Tents have been delivered to mountain villages by helicopter, truck, on donkeys and on foot in the eight weeks since the quake struck.
"The bad news is that not all tents are providing adequate shelter, given the weather conditions. Many can be winterised, many are being winterised but some will have to be replaced altogether," Vandemoortele said.
Corrugated iron sheeting was essential for helping to protect tents, or to help families to build one room that could be heated. Supplies of the sheets had to be maintained, he said.
Darren Boisvert of the International Organisation for Migration which is overseeing efforts to provide shelter, said 90 percent of the 420,000 tents distributed were not winterised.
"There were just not enough winter tents in the world to meet the need and people now had to be helped to build their own shelter out of the ruins of their old homes," Boisvert said.
The immediate goal was to get 10,000 winterised shelter kits to people living at altitudes above 5,000 feet (1,500 metres). The kits include corrugated iron sheeting and other basic building material.
"We have moved forward to provide one warm room for every family in the region and we're moving ahead with that, so this is what we are doing now, we are moving more to traditional shelters, we're getting away from the tents," he said. Roughly half of the initial 10,000 kits had been distributed with the remainder due to be supplied by Dec. 12. The next target would be another 10,000 kits to high-altitude communities, he said.
"The reason for this is quite simple. The more people that we can properly shelter in these upper elevations means that less people will move down from the upper elevations into camps below," he said.
Most survivors want to stay on their land with their animals but thousands have trekked out of the mountains to towns in the foothills where crowded, unsanitary tent camps have sprung up. Vandemoortele said there had been no outbreaks of epidemics or increase in the mortality rate among survivors since the winter began to bite a week ago.
But conditions for the spread of disease were there and now was no time for complacency, he said.
"Acute respiratory infection, in particular, is the biggest concern we have and that is why we focus so much on shelter because keeping people dry and keeping people warm is going to be essential." - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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