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| November 8, 2005 | Tuesday | Shawwal 5, 1426 |
Pakistan official quake toll unchanged at 73,276-government ISLAMABAD, Oct 8 (Reuters) Pakistan's official death toll from the devastating earthquake that hit the north of the country a month ago remains at 73,276, the government commission supervising the relief effort said on Tuesday. Earlier today a U.N. spokeswoman said figures provided by the Federal Relief Commission had put the toll at more than 87,000. She later said these figures had not come from the commission and its figure remained unchanged. Commission spokesman Col. Baseer Malik said the death toll was unchanged at 73,276. He said this was likely to rise as more information came in from remote areas, but not dramatically. (Posted @ 15:05 PST)
Disease, death looms in Pakistan quake zone MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, Nov 8 (Reuters) Relief workers in the disaster zone are facing a logistical nightmare with countless high-country settlements cut off by landslides that blocked or swept away roads, and money to keep a fleet of relief helicopters in the air fast running out. Every day the weather gets colder, with rain and snow forecast in areas over 2,000 metres in coming days. Shelter, food and medical care are the priorities. About half a million people still have absolutely no shelter, a UN group said. The international community has so far provided 130,000 tents, the Pakistani government 240,000 and about 175,000 are on order. But there are worries about the quality of tents on order with many believed to be summer tents that are likely to collapse under snow. Not waiting for tents to arrive, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have launched operation Winter Race to deliver 10,000 shelter repair kits to high-altitude villages. The kits include roofing tin, tarpaulin, nails and wire, with which villagers, many of whom who can salvage some material from their ruined homes, can make shelters to get them through the winter. The Health Ministry says there have been nearly 9,000 cases of acute respiratory infections, including pneumonia, more than 6,000 cases of diarrhoea, 1,130 cases of dysentery and 139 cases of tetanus, of whom 41 have died. UNICEF says there have also been several deaths from measles and they are vaccinating hundreds of thousands of children to stop its spread in tent communities. (Posted @ 15:15 PST)
Indo-Pakistan LoC opening urgent for quake aid-WFP GENEVA, Nov 8 (Reuters) Roads crossing the Indo-Pakistan Line of Control(LoC) must be opened rapidly to get vital aid to thousands of homeless survivors of the South Asian earthquake before winter sets in, the U.N. food aid agency WFP said on Tuesday. "We have desperate need for much wider access to hundreds of thousands of people in remote valleys and on high plateaux in Azad Kashmir, near the LoC," a WFP spokeswoman said. "If we could establish a land route from India, it would allow us to save thousands of lives," she said. The WFP, handling the logistics of the operation, said it had received only 14 percent of the $100 million it sought for relief helicopters. "We need to have a total of 30 helicopters flying, and right into December and January, to get not just food but all types of relief supplies and winter survival equipment to the quake survivors," the spokesman told the briefing. "But at the moment all we can afford is 17," she added. (Posted @ 19:25 PST)
First seconds of a quake can show its size-study report LONDON, Nov 9 (Reuters) With the devastation of last month's Pakistan earthquake still fresh in mind, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley said on Wednesday they have developed a way of predicting the size of a tremor as it starts. "We can determine the magnitude within a couple of seconds of initiation of rupture and predict the ground motion from seconds to tens of seconds before it is felt," said lead researcher Richard Allen. Although that time frame would be far too short for people to react and evacuate, it could be enough to tell local emergency services almost instantaneously the scale of the disaster they are likely to be facing when the dust settles. Up to now, the cascade theory of earthquakes that portrays them as acting like a row of dominoes with one action triggering another in sequence, has meant it has been impossible to gauge the scale of the quake until it has ended. But the study led by Allen and co-author Erik Olson, published in Thursday's edition of Nature science journal, suggests that the size, type and depth of the first break on the fault line, that can be measured as it happens, gives a very good indication of the earthquake's eventual reach. (Posted @ 19:15 PST)
UN launches 'school in box' in devastated Kashmir MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 8 (Reuters) The United Nations launched a "school in a box" project on Tuesday to help restart classes in earthquake-devastated Pakistan, where UNICEF estimates 17,000 were killed when hundreds of schools collapsed. It plans to distribute 2,000 boxes in the earthquake zone containing slates, pencils, chalk, coloured pencils and notebooks to help efforts to restart classes. At least 10,000 schools were damaged or destroyed in the quake, UNICEF said. Each box can accommodate 40 students for about three months, said UNICEF's Claudia Hudspeth. The Narol Government High School was one of only 10 in Muzaffarabad that have restarted classes since the disaster. They are being held in tents in the ruins of the school building. Eighty-four children and two teachers died when this school collapsed. Children sat in the new tent classroom separated by grade. On Tuesday, they had only one lesson: "Write something about the earthquake." Local government officials say up to 600 teachers were killed in the earthquake across Azad Kashmir. (Posted @ 19:10 PST)
UN says it can keep Pakistan quake survivors alive in bitter winter ISLAMABAD, Nov 8 (AFP) The United Nations said Tuesday that one month after the devastating South Asian earthquake it was ready for the "colossal job" of keeping survivors alive during the Himalayan winter. "The job is colossal but there is a feeling that this is a doable job," UN Emergency Coordinator Jan Vandemoortele said. "It is not mission impossible. The job can be done and to get it done we need two things, cash and coordination," Vandemoortele told a news conference. "We see that the pipeline is gradually becoming a reality in terms of money and in terms of deliverables: the tents the blankets, the slates for the latrines," Vandemoortele said. "It is moving. And if we can keep the momentum, and there is no reason that we should not able to keep momentum on our side, we will be ready for the winter," he said. "And the news that we just heard about the roads being opened has a major impact on the requirements in terms of dollars to keep these operations going." On the cash side a total of 1.4 billion dollars has been pledged to Pakistan and 380 million dollars of that has been handed over so far, he said. Some 85 million dollars has come through the UN. Vandemoortele said at least an additional 42.6 million dollars would be required in November, the critical month before the harsh winter sets in. Shelter was one of the top five priorities, followed by camp management, heating, sanitation, food and seed distribution, he said. (Posted @ 18:15 PST)
Aziz asks housing ministry to submit revised building codes in a month ISLAMABAD, Nov 8 (APP): Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz Tuesday directed the Ministry of Housing and Works to submit a revised draft of building codes within a month to ensure that all future constructions comply with safety standards. The draft codes would be prepared by an experts committee headed by NESPAK. Chairing a high level meeting at the PM House, he said the government would not ban construction of multi-storied buildings. He however asked CDA to improve enforcement of laws and improve inspection and supervision mechanism to ensure there was no sub standard construction. Aziz asked Chairman CDA to have a more interactive policy and continuously disseminate information to public about buildings, housing societies, which do not fulfil CDA's requirements, allowing public to make correct decisions. (Posted @ 17:30 PST)
Mirwaiz hits out after quake-hit Kashmiris tear gassed SRINAGAR, Occupied Kashmir, Nov 8 (AFP) A leading Kashmiri leader, angered at the tear gassing of earthquake survivors as they surged towards the Kashmir frontier, called Tuesday on India and Pakistan to ease travel restrictions. "I was moved by the scene," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, leader of All Parties Hurriyat Conference. "India and Pakistan must respect the sentiments of the Kashmiri people and allow them to travel across the so-called Line of Control (LoC) freely," hesaid. Farooq suggested Tuesday that the State Subject Certificate issued to permanent residents in both parts of Kashmir should be treated as a valid travel document. "But by imposing certain restrictions on the travel, India and Pakistan have failed to rise to the occasion," he added. "We had welcomed the move but by seeking to make it a long-drawn process the very purpose of opening the points has been defeated," the 34-year-old cleric and politician said. (Posted @ 15:50 PST)
Safety of pregnant women in quake-hit areas in jeopardy: Islamabad, November 08, (PPI): Some 17,000 earthquake-affectedwomen in Pakistan are expected to give birth in the next two months. An estimated 1,200 of them will face major complications and about 400 will require surgical assistance, said the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in a press release on Monday. It warned that the health and safety of these pregnant women and adolescent girls are in jeopardy due to the shock and trauma they suffered in the 8 October quake, the harsh living conditions they now face, and their very limited access to basic health services and emergency obstetric care. To help local authorities address this situation, UNFPA is providing clean delivery kits, caesarean section kits, emergency supplies and much-needed surgical equipment to health centers and referral facilities as part of the United Nations' coordinated response. As the earthquake response advances from emergency relief efforts to reconstruction, there is an urgent need to re-establish the health system and to train community health providers in basic maternal care. (Posted @ 12:35 PST)
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