BATAL, Oct 20: It’s the shortage of tents, suitable tents, which is haunting earthquake survivors with the government and private sector organizations coming nowhere near meeting the urgent need.

People of Batal, a small town in teshil Uggi of district Mansehra, one of the worst hit places in the NWFP, have also the same complaint.

Some of the villages have received tents but they are mainly for summer season when what they would need in the approaching winter are special kind of tents.

Travelling from Uggi towards Batal, one sees people desperately looking for tents. Villages along the road have suffered destruction like any other place the killer earthquake hit.

Talking to this correspondent, a group of elders of Bhaibela village in Batal area said they needed nothing but tents, only tents.

“We have everything with us except tents. With every passing day, it is becoming unbearable for us to survive under the open sky with temperature plunging to freezing point,” they said. By the first week of December, everything here will be under snow, confining people to their houses, now destroyed,” said Hidayatullah Shah, 65. “For two to three months, the people will have no work except shovelling snow from their roofs”.

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the homeless people are managing to survive under makeshift tents made of plastic sheets and other such stuff, he said. “We can not sleep during night, because dew starts seeping after midnight.”

Zeenat Khan, 45, standing beside the ruins of his house in the same village was looking determined to rebuild it provided the government came up with some kind of help.

“Though, I have lost my house, by the grace of God my family remained unscathed. We only need a little bit help from someone to start our life again,” he said.

His house is right on the road but no military or private relief truck stopped there because everybody was rushing to populated areas. Only some civilians dropped some food which was not required, he said.

“Our most immediate requirement is tents, which are not forthcoming,” he said. Pointing to his 15-month son, he helplessly said, “he is already suffering from cold and we need something to cover our heads during rain and can not carry on with the prevailing conditions,”