Pakistan Earthquake Update 15-21 November 2005
Situation
With the continuing aftershocks and ever-dropping of mercury, people in the earthquake affected areas are fast plunging into fear of chilling cold. Since, they could not collect food and fuel wood for winter season due to the earthquake as they traditionally used to do in the past, they are in the state of uncertainty on the counts of food security, heat and shelter.
Over the next week and half, snow would start coming down from presently 10,000 feet high altitude to 6000-7000 feet thus putting hundreds of thousands of survivors living in tents in mountainous valleys at risk and there could be another wave of death and tragedy if the people were not protected against harsh weather. Already cold waves are causing skin diseases, pneumonia and chest and urinary tract infections in children, women and elderly people. The survivors are having asthmatic conditions as well.
Due to insufficient food and medical supplies and improper shelters, thousands of survivors are at the risk of being badly impacted by harsh winter and snow. Especially women, children, sick and elderly people are vulnerable to cold weather. Those who have migrated to other cities or they are in village tents away from their houses fear they may lose their ancestral land and compensation, if they continued living away from their shattered houses for long.
Life in tents is becoming miserable in the snow capped mountainous valleys. Now there is a need to provide the survivors some kind of proper shelters instead of tents as tents cannot withstand chilly winds and snow. Reconstruction would take a long time but we need to protect earthquake hit people by providing them food and non food items and shelters.
Donor's Money
International donor countries and monetary institutions conference ended in Islamabad on Saturday with a pledge to contribute US $ 5.827 billion for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of earthquake hit people. A break up of this amount shows that 67% of the pledged amount would be in terms of soft loans while only 33% would be in grants that too in cash and in kind and services. Reports say this would also include the operational costs already incurred. So literally, there would be hardly any flexible cash to build temporary shelters to safe people from harsh winter. The amount of loan would have its own soft conditionality and it would take some time to complete procedure. Actionaid presses for early disbursement of as much cash as possible so that the affected people can protect themselves, re-start their lives and restore their subsistent livelihoods.
Actionaid's Intervention:
Actionaids emergency response team under the new project director Ms. Bushra Gohar has formally started working with opening of its central coordination office in Islamabad and areas offices in Mansehra and Batgram districts in the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP). Two other area offices in Bagh and Muzafarabad in Azad Kashmir are likely to start formal working soon.
Actionaid has started construction process of 50 shelters in Paniola village of Rawalakot in Azad Kashmir in partnership with Labour Party Pakistan. A review team has gone to the area for monitoring of the process. Meanwhile, Emergency food and non food supplies continued unabated in Batgram area where Actionaid has sent 16 trucks load of food and non food items for some 1200 families in Allai and Sumlai valleys in addition to medical supplies worth Rs 0.7 million during the week. Though Actionaids focus has been changed from tents to shelters, yet it has sent some 300 tents for those who even do not have tents.
Actionaid has set up a sub office in Allai valley, which has long been disconnected from rest of the country due to heavy landslide and the people of this area could not get relief goods there during early weeks of the 8th Octobers earthquake. Actionaids medical camps in four locations in Allai, Shangla and Batamori continued to give medical care to the people. Actionaid's volunteer female medical staff continued visiting ailing survivors, particularly women, in their tents.
With the permanent presence of Actionaid in the central Pokkal village of Allai valley, the survivors feel encouraged and they have started coming back to life. Actionaids communications team alongwith a journalist from The Independent on Sunday UK visited various villages in the Allai valley where they have seen death, destruction and poverty alongwith hope and a little livelihood activity. The people in this area have started harvesting paddy and corn from their fields. Since agriculture in these valleys is subsistence and organic, the farmers in collaboration with fellow farmers have started threshing rice particularly in a traditional way as they do not have agricultural implements. But these villagers do not have shelter for themselves, for their cattle and food grains.
Actionaid is fast moving to provide the survivors the galvanized iron sheet shelters with steel and wood structures with a provision of small kitchen and toilet to safe the people during the winter season till March 2006. Actionaid has designed these shelters i
n a way that after March when these temporary winter shelters would be replaced with permanent shelters, the material of the temporary shelters would be re-used in the permanent ones.
Earthquake Update Pakistan- November 22-30, 2005
Situation
With first formal snowfall in the earthquake hit areas, winter coupled with chilly winds as warned earlier has started claiming lives of the venerable survivors and hampering relief work.
Reports from Azad Kashmir quoted in national dailies say an infant and a middle-aged man who survived the devastating earthquake of 8th October became the first confirmed victims on Monday of the winter. A middle-aged man died at the hospital in Bagh early Monday, a day after he was brought in with hypothermia. Three-month-old Waqar Mukhtar died of pneumonia hours after he was brought in from nearby Neelum Valley, said Abdul Hamid, a doctor at a hospital in Muzaffarabad. More than 100 people were brought to hospitals in the region with hypothermia and respiratory diseases. Hundreds of more women, children and the elderly survivors have already been suffering from a variety of ailments relating to cold.
Though aid workers including Actionaids volunteers and troops are building shelters as quickly as they can to provide snow-bearing and wind-breaking shelters of Galvanized Iron Sheets and woods, thousands of the people are at risk of the cold wave that may cause another disaster after the earthquake itself. Rain and snow are hampering relief work and shivering people making them vulnerable to cold related diseases.
Actionaid team from Allai valley in Batgram district of North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) says road and telephone links to Allai Valley have been suspended. The first snowfall and winds destroyed Actionaids food and non food storage in Pokal village of Allai Valley, which hampered relief supplies to the survivors.
Actionaid's Work
Actionaid sent 16 truck load of food and non food items to Batgram for1200 families from Batgram and Allai areas during the week. However, 8 more trucks load of relief supplies are at the standby position as the field staff has requested for temporary suspension of supplies due to the collapse of the storage of Actionaid in Pokal village of Allai Valley as snow struck the Valley. The food items include wheat flour, tea, milk, sugar, rice, pulses, vegetable oil, spices and non food items are cotton rolls for women hygiene, shawls for women, jackets (children) and socks, towel, soap, buckets and blankets. The union councils Actionaid is covering include Battamori, Thakot, Paymal, Biyari and Dandai in Batgram, Allai and Shangla areas. Actionaids medical camps in Mera, Jambera, Dandai and Battamori are providing medical care to the people of these areas. Actionaid has shifted a patient in precarious condition to Abbotabad hospital.
Eight of Actionaids volunteers are also stuck up at the Pokal camp of Actionaid in the Valley. However, they are busy in assessment of the families further to provide them food, non food and shelters. Ration cards would be distributed after the need assessment of more families struck in the mountainous terrains.
After full fledged working of the Actionaid area offices in Batgram and Allai, a fully equipped office in Mansehra has been made operative. The relevant staff will take over quickly as hiring has already been completed. In Bagh and Muzafarabad, offices have almost been set up and will be made fully operational once hiring of staff takes place.
Actionaid and The Independent on Sunday, UK
Julia Stuart, a journalist from The Independent on Sunday from London visited the areas where Actionaid is working in Allai and Shumalai valleys in Batgram as part of a four-story Christmas appeal alongwith a photographer Mr Christopher. The first of such article appeared on November 27, 2005. The link of the same has been circulated and has been well received in Actionaid Pakistan.
The emergency response project director Ms Bushra Gohar in her comments said the article is very clear and precise. ?I hope it does the job of fund raising for the many that are stranded. We can then increase our target from 4000 to reaching at least 10,000 - 15,000 affectees before spring,? said Ms Gohar.
