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Cold Begins to Claim Lives of Kashmir Quake Survivors
USA Today
November 28, 2005
REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
Subfreezing temperatures and the first snowfall in Kashmir claimed the life of an infant Monday — the first reported victim of what officials fear will be a new disaster for millions of Pakistanis left homeless by an earthquake.
A middle-aged man with terminal cancer also died after he was taken to a NATO hospital suffering from hypothermia.
"This is exactly what we had feared. Our position here is we need to continue to do as much as possible to help mitigate this situation and prevent, insofar as that's possible, any such occurences in the future," said Stephanie Bunker of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Another United Nations official, Elisabeth Byrs, said the relief effort remains underfunded and that, according to the Pakistani military, at least 300,000 people remain inaccessible in remote Himalayan regions. None have tents, she said.
Troops and aid workers are building shelters as fast as they can. But with heavy rains and a fresh blanket of snow over the last two days heralding the onset of the region's harsh winter, it is not fast enough for those who have been living rough since the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed more than 87,000 people.
"It is only the beginning of winter. We are concerned," said Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva. "The race to provide suitable shelter in time is not lost yet, but the consequences resulting from a lack of funds could result in more deaths of vulnerable people" such as the elderly and infants.
Of the 500,000 tents the United Nations purchased and stockpiled for quake relief, about 165,000 have yet to be delivered, with weather conditions worsening every day, she said.
Stoves and corrugated iron sheeting also are urgently required, as many tents are not winterized, Byrs said. So far, the U.N. has received $216 million in emergency relief funds, only 39% of its appeal for $550 million.
All helicopters were grounded Sunday due to bad weather and they did not resume flying until later Monday, Byrs said. She said UNICEF, the U.N.'s children agency, already reported difficulties transporting water and sanitation gear into the Niloum Valley.
"If we don't get people into shelters, they will die. It's as simple as that," said Air Commodore Andrew Walton, commander of the NATO disaster response team in Pakistan.
"That's the second disaster that's waiting to happen if we in the international community don't do something about it," he said at a NATO field hospital in Bagh, a town in Pakistan's part of disputed Kashmir.
The middle-aged man died at NATO hospital early Monday, a day after he was brought in with hypothermia, said Lt. Col. Johan De Graaf, the facility's senior medical officer.
"The reason for him dying was strictly the fact that he had cancer. He would have died that night or sometime the next morning. The fact that he had hypothermia conincided with the case," De Graaf said. He added that no hypothermia deaths have been referred or reported to his hospital.
Three-month-old Waqar Mukhtar died of pneumonia hours after he was brought to a hospital in the regional capital, Muzaffarabad, said Dr. Abdul Hamid.
More than 100 people were brought to hospitals in the region with hypothermia and respiratory diseases. That does not include the hundreds of women, children and the elderly already suffering from a variety of ailments even before the first cold snap.
Dozens lined up outside the NATO hospital, shivering in a cold rain. Ten-year-old Mohammed Shafi waited for cough medicine, drawing a brown shawl around his shaking body and slipping off his sandals to rub his bare feet together in a fruitless fight to stay warm.
The bad weather also blocked roads and grounded helicopters as troops raced against the approaching Himalayan winter to ferry aid to remote areas.
In the coming weeks, NATO plans to start using helicopters that have been hauling aid to the quake zone to carry shelter materials and medical teams to high mountain areas.
"You can only go so far" on foot and with trucks, mules and horses, Walton said.
Parveen Ejaz, 26, waited outside the hospital with her two sons and 2-year-old daughter, all suffering from coughs and colds.
"I'm really worried about the winter because I lost my house and we are living in tents," she said as she held the girl. "It's extremely cold, and when it rains, we get wet."
The season's first snow fell on mountains near Muzaffarabad and elsewhere late Saturday. Downpours and snowfalls continued Monday.
Maj. Farooq Nasir said the weather led troops to halt traffic on the main Neelum Valley road "to avoid loss of life," and that no army helicopters would fly Monday because of clouds and rain.
The heavy rains created a near-quagmire in the town of Arja at the camp for a NATO engineering battalion working to clear roads, repair schools and hospitals and get aid to quake survivors at high altitudes.
"It will slow us down, but we will not stop working," spokesman Lt. Col. Pedro Vallespin said as troops built a boardwalk over the mud. "Just think, if you're working up there, what it's like with the mud and the landslides," he said, gesturing at the surrounding hills.
Walton warned that rain and snow will likely set off landslides in quake-damaged areas, causing more casualties and further complicating the aid effort.
Pakistan's army said 14 battalions of military engineers are working with volunteers and aid workers to build shelters of about 200 square feet, with priority given to families who have no male member in the home and are living above 5,000 feet. It said 18,269 shelters have been completed, with 4,750 more under construction.
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