PESHAWAR, Oct 11: The Watan Welfare Society, a local NGO run by doctors, has sent teams of specialist doctors to the quake-affected areas of Balakot and Mansehra and has urged the medical community to gear up their efforts for rehabilitation of the affected population.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, the society’s chairman, Dr Said Alam Mehsud, said that they had already sent 100 pints of blood along with medicines to help the people.

He said that the society’s doctors had established a medical camp in Abbottabad where the wounded people were being given medical assistance.

NWFP University of Engineering and Technology (UET) has set up a relief cell and launched a donation campaign to coordinate and facilitate relief efforts for the victims of the earthquake that has struck the Hazara division of the NWFP. The university employees have already donated three days’ salaries for the victims.

The University has set up two teams within this relief cell to work systematically and in a coordinative manner with government agencies.

This was announced by Vice Chancellor Syed Imtiaz Hussain Gilani in a meeting held here on Tuesday.

He said a technical team comprising of experts and civil engineers has been sent to Abbotabad to closely work with the government in evaluating the structural damages and collapse which took place in the buildings and hospitals of the city. “In this regard, the first task assigned is to evaluate and restore the cracks in the Ayub Medical Complex, Abbotabad,” he added.

He said that an amount of Rs400,000 had also been dispatched for the affected people.

The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) has expressed concern over Saturday’s devastating quack and has urged for efforts to save the children.

A female teacher, Kinza, of the Shaheen Public School was recovered dead with an alive child beneath her. She protected the child otherwise it would have been unable to survive. Children were the worst affected by the devastating earthquake in the southern part of the NWFP.

Balakot has been totally destroyed and almost 90 per cent structures have been ruined completely, said the Sparc team who were in Balakot to assess the situation and extend whatever help was possible.

A French team, led by the French Embassy’s Defence Attache, helped in recovering the body of school teacher Kinza along with many school children belonging to the Shaheen Public School.

Hundreds of bodies are still lying under the debris of devastated houses in Balakot, said the Sparc team.