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| December 10, 2005 | Saturday | Ziqa’ad 7, 1426 |
Faster relief work urged to prevent more deaths
ISLAMABAD, Dec 9: Thousands of earthquake survivors are still in need of help, and if not facilitated on emergency basis, they would not be able to survive the winter, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) observed on Friday. A dramatic increase and improvement in the international relief operation is essential to avert a second humanitarian disaster in Pakistan, Oxfam warned.
“The international community must work together and work faster to fulfil their promise to prevent further deaths. Within weeks, the window of opportunity to bring relief to hard-to-reach areas will shut, the time to act is now,” Farhana Faruqi Stocker, Oxfam’s Pakistan country director, was quoted in a press release as saying.
Thousands of people are suffering from upper respiratory tract infections. Many survivors have still not been reached. Some communities told Oxfam that they had already started preparing graves before the earth was hardened in the winter.
It is a race against onset of the appalling weather but success is still possible if the relief operation is scaled up, Ms Stocker said.
The challenge is that despite scaling up the efforts, the UN relief operation is yet not big enough. It is under-resourced and under-funded.
The UN is most effective in protecting survivors when large numbers of experienced professionals are on the ground to provide leadership, advice and delivery and clearly there is still much more to be done.
Donor governments must respond to the looming second disaster by increasing their funding to the UN relief appeal and release what has already been pledged, she said.
The World Food Programme (WFP), for example, is still short of $115 million of the $182 million it needs. Donor governments need to show the same generosity. Unless the international community provides the help needed, it will be people in the mountains who will be paying the price.
Heavy snows are likely to lead to increased movement of people. Many more people will have to make the bleak choice of staying where they are for strong cultural reasons and in order to look after their land and livestock. Time is running out to reach them with the shelter material they need to keep themselves alive. Action is also needed to protect people who have left their mountain villages to stay in the camps.
Oxfam welcomes the process initiated by Pakistan to transfer the management of much of the relief operation from the military to civilian authorities, but cautions that this needs to be done in a phased manner that supports the civilian authorities to ensure effective camp management, Ms Stocker said.
Properly resourced, well-managed camps, combined with provision to those who are staying in the mountains would see people through the winter.
“There is real danger that this unprecedented natural disaster will be followed by a man-made one,” she said.
“The international community has the capacity to do what is required. It is not yet too late but further delay will be fatal.”
Roads: United Nations Joint Logistics Centre (UNJLC) on Friday warned that road conditions in the quake- affected areas would further deteriorate as winter progresses, affecting relief activities.
A UNJLC bulletin stated that the routes were subject to solifluction, freezing and thawing of the moisture in the soil which would cause movement on any significantly unstable slope.
Along the Neelum Valley Road, there are two significant landslides, the Batmang (between Chalpani to Dunga) and Nauseri (Nauseri Bridge to Tithwal). The road is considered open, but it is subject to continuous rockslide activity that requires regular emergency clearance, it said.
For about 5km along the Batmang landslide, the old road is covered by four to six metres of infill. This fill is unstable and currently can only accommodate one-way traffic.
Daily clearance is causing further undercutting leading to more tension on the slope.
Nauseri landslide stretches between Nauseri and the Line of Control. As for Batmang, the undercut road segment has caused insecure debris upslope that continues to jeopardize any movement along the road.
In the Kaghan Valley road trouble spots include Kawai, Paras, and Jared. Slides are above and below the road with heavy daily rock fall activity. Traffic is limited to one way in many places.
All makeshift or temporary passages along rock debris should be considered as unsafe, the UNJLC bulletin cautioned.
Emergency clearance activity, it said, was only a temporary solution and reconstruction would be required as soon as possible in the spring.
Meanwhile, UNHAS air assets that have remained constant for several weeks now, may expand by three MI-8s over the coming weeks.
Besides, sling nets and de-icing equipment is being procured for improving the efficiency of the helicopter operation. UNHAS currently has 20 nets in use. Twenty more will be deployed soon, plus a further 50 have been procured from the UK.
Options for procuring more are being explored. However, this number is still short of the operational requirement of 400. In order for helicopters to continue to operate through winter, UNHAS has urged the agencies concerned to properly maintain the landing sites.
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