|
|
|
| January 4, 2006 | Wednesday | Zilhaj 3, 1426 |
New tent villages set up in AJK
MUZAFFARABAD, Jan 3: Aid workers on Tuesday set up new camps for survivors of the South Asian earthquake whose tents collapsed in heavy rain and snow, as bad weather disrupted relief operations for a third day.
Forecasters warned that although the blizzards and downpours that began on New Year’s Eve were due to tail off within 24 hours, a bitterly cold front is now moving in across Pakistan and India.
Helicopter flights were grounded by fog in the morning and did not take off later Tuesday while most roads in the area have been blocked by snow and landslides.
“The strong system which brought rain and snow is gradually weakening, but a severe cold wave is expected to follow it later this week,” an official at the Pakistan Meteorological department told AFP.
The minimum temperature in high-altitude villages is expected to drop as low as minus 14 degrees Celsius this week, he said.
The 7.6 magnitude quake on Oct 8 killed more than 73,000 people and made more than three million homeless in Azad Kashmir and NWFP.
“Persistent rain and snow collapsed our tents and we struggled and helped each other to pitch them again last night,” Iftikhar Ahmed, a labourer who lost his home, told AFP in Muzaffarabad.
“You hardly find a proper winterised tent around, and these tents that we have got offer little protection against rain and cold,” Ahmed said.
Morgan Morris, senior coordinator for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said a new camp had been set up at Upper Gojra on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad to accommodate 85 families.
Another 35 families whose tents collapsed in the city’s main camp in the destroyed university campus have been moved to another camp in Muzaffarabad and provided with blankets and plastic sheets, she added.
Army officials also said soldiers and aid workers had been sent to survivors’ camps to distribute more blankets and plastic sheets and replace leaking and collapsed tents.
In held Kashmir, where some 1,300 people were killed and more than 150,000 left homeless by the quake, survivors suffered another sleepless night as the snowfall threatened tents and makeshift shelters.
“Until midnight it was snowing heavily and we were out in turns removing snow from our temporary sheds to prevent them from collapsing,” said Imtiaz Hussain from the northern district of Uri, one of the two worst-hit areas.
Authorities have accommodated the homeless in temporary sheds and tents, but there have been numerous reports of shelters caving in from the heavy snow. One person has reportedly been killed.
The quake-hit region has received three to four feet of snow since Saturday and more rain and snow was expected during the next 24 hours, the latest weather forecast said.
Night-time temperatures have already plummeted below freezing and the day temperatures are also close to freezing in most of the quake-hit areas, Pakistan’s meteorological department said.—AFP
|
|
|
|
