PESHAWAR, Jan 3: Making heating arrangements in tent villages in the quake-hit areas of the NWFP has become a major concern for relief organizations and the army as the survivors are living in freezing cold.

More than two months after the Oct 8 earthquake, thousands of survivors have yet to find adequate shelter to protect them from biting cold.

Due to growing incidents of tents catching fire, authorities have banned lighting fire inside tents erected at 5,000 to 6,000 feet, where the temperature remains below freezing point.

Citing reason for the ban, Brig Ulfat Hussain, Deputy Force Commander, Army Earthquake Relief Operation in Mansehra, said: “We don’t want to put the survivors at risk, that is why lighting fire in tents has been prohibited.”

He recalled that three children were killed in a tent village in Battagram when a tent caught fire two days ago.

Meanwhile, United Nations relief bodies, NGOs and the army have yet to devise a viable mechanism for heating arrangements in tent villages in high altitude areas of the province.

The region, which has received heavy snowfall and rains, has lately been in the grip of cold weather.

Officials said that they had a limited number of heaters which could not be distributed among the survivors.

A UN agency worker told this correspondent in Mansehra that hardly one per cent survivors had received winterised tents whereas available tents could not protect them from cold.

“They are at the mercy of an unrelenting weather,” he said.

The army in collaboration with the UN agencies and its partners is managing 22 tent villages in Abbottabad, Mansehra, Battagram, Shangla and Kohistan districts, where 122,786 individuals have been accommodated in flimsy tents. Moreover, there are 125 spontaneous tent villages in the

quake-hit areas run by various organizations and philanthropists.

The survivors have received 226,275 tents and 640,617 blankets, according to official statistics.

Apart from the tent villages, the Army Engineer Corps and NGOs have constructed 97,559 shelters in the affected areas whereas 4,584 are under construction.

Military officials, who are catering to the needs of survivors, said that the shortage of iron sheets had badly affected construction of shelters in the high altitude areas.

Out of total 3,247,916 survivors in the five quake-hit districts, only 122,786 have taken shelters in tent villages and the remaining are reluctant to come down from the hills.

Officials claimed that the tent villages had sufficient space to absorb those people.

They said that after receiving first installment of compensation, local people had built shelters in the hilly areas to protect them and their cattle from bad weather.