BATTAGRAM, Oct 22: Quake survivors have to walk several kilometres from their largely isolated villages in Battagram district and wait for hours just to receive a blanket, a cotton-mattress and other relief items from distribution centres set up by the army and private organisations.

People try to reach the distribution centres early in the morning before these centres become overcrowded.

Because the quake played havoc with the road network linking villages to main towns, survivors are forced to walk for hours from their villages just to queue up outside the distribution camps.

Although there is no scarcity of relief items at any of the distribution points, not every one among the assembled crowd succeeds in getting relief goods from the centres located along the busy highway.

Waiting for a passenger vehicle on the main highway leading to Battagram, Qari Aziz-ur-Rehman of Kathora village isn’t optimistic about his chances of receiving relief items from the centre.

“It is 6:30 in the morning and I am waiting for transport to get to the distribution centre,” said Mr Rehman who walked for an hour and a half from his village just to get to the roadside bus stop.

He said he had failed to get a tent from the distribution centre last Wednesday even though he had waited for four long hours in a queue.

“I don’t need anything else except a tent to enable my family and children to spend the night under a shelter,” said Rehman, who lost his three-bedroom house and the sole source of his income – a pair of buffaloes and sheep – in the Oct. 8 quake.

Scores of survivors are seen lined up outside distribution centres set up by the military, Al-Khidmat Foundation, Al-Rasheed Trust, Karachi and Jamaat-ud-Dawaa in Battagram district.

One common complaint heard at these centres concerns the cumbersome procedures adopted by those distributing relief goods. After waiting for hours people either receive the items or are denied the same by the camp’s management.

“Only people known to them [management of the distribution camps] are getting relief goods,” said Maulvi Hakeem Jan, a prayer leader of Nathoo Banda, near Battagram.

Maulvi Jan was standing outside the distribution camp set up by the Jamaat-i-Islami in Battagram. According to him, the quake destroyed 70 houses in his village and an unaccounted number of villagers were buried alive.

However, Mohammed Riaz, who is in charge of the JI’s relief, refuted claims of “partisan behaviour” in the distribution of relief goods. He told Dawn that a comprehensive system had been put in place to ensure delivery of relief items to the deserving people.