November 07, 2008	Friday	Ziqa'ad 8, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Nov 6: The much-awaited distribution of winterised tents in quake-hit areas of Balochistan will begin on Friday with the number of available tents still too small to save most of the survivors bearing the brunt of the biting cold.

“The first consignment of 200 winterised tents has arrived from the United Kingdom and its distribution will start on Friday,” National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chairman Lt-Gen (retd) Farooq Ahmad Khan told Dawn on Thursday.

He said 200 more tents donated by the Rotary Club would reach in a few days, adding that a request for more tents had been made to the institution.

He said the tents would be distributed in a transparent manner to ensure that these were not given only to the favourites of nazims and officials.

He said it was difficult to withstand the harsh weather conditions without winterised tents in the quake-affected areas, but said there were difficulties in acquiring these tents. He said blankets, quilts, warm jackets and sleeping bags in large quantities had been distributed among the affected people to cope with the harsh weather.

He said 100,000 blankets had so far been transported. There are 40,000 to 50,000 in the stocks and another 20,000 were released on Thursday.

He conceded that the idea of establishing two tent villages had to be dropped because the people wanted individual tents and they were not ready to move to these villages.

Dispelling a perception about NDMA’s alleged poor response to the disaster, he said 3200 tents had been in Quetta the day the earthquake struck, adding that 2000 of these were rushed to the affected areas and the rest were sent the following day.

Gen Farooq also rejected as baseless an impression that some 30,000 children had been forced to live in the open in the quake-hit areas and said the number of destroyed houses was 1500 to 2000 and the total number of displaced people was somewhere between 7,000 to 10,000.

“Had the information about such a large number of children’s exposure to cold been correct, many of them must have died by now,” he said.

Giving details of relief items distributed so far or in the supply line, he said these includes 135,500 blankets and quilts, 27,000 tents, 13,000 warm jackets, 12,000 plastic mats, 2,193 sleeping bags, 10,000 family rations packs each containing food for seven people for a week each, 500 tins of ghee of 5kg and 91 tons of ration.

He said three provinces had donated 38,000 bags of flour, with Punjab donating 16,700 bags. He said the World Food Programme was providing food for 20,000 people for two months. He said many political parties had also contributed adequate quantities of relief goods.

He said there was no dearth of food and medicines and the situation was well under control.He said three medical teams of the army and 24 of the Balochistan government were operating in these areas and 18 ambulances were in the area and the Ziarat District Hospital was functioning and providing treatment to those in need.

In reply to a question, he said that reconstruction work in the quake-hit areas would start in March or April next year. He said the total number of dead as a result of the earthquake was 166.