ISLAMABAD, Oct 18: Pakistan has banned the export of tents as it needs as much makeshift shelter as possible after the quake that left three million people homeless, the national disaster response chief said on Tuesday.

Major General Farooq Ahmad Khan made the announcement hours after a senior United Nations official said there were not enough winter-weight tents in the world to keep desperate survivors of the disaster warm this winter.

“All exports of tents have been banned with effect as of today. So all that is the production capacity in this country will be available to us in a few days,” Gen Khan told a news conference.

He said there were 37 tent-making factories in Punjab capable of producing 75,000 tents a day.

But he said they may not all be capable of producing weather-protected tents, adding: “Please don’t get the wrong message that we don’t need them.

“We need it and need it in (these) numbers for the simple reason that 200,000 houses have gone down. The families are above three million. When you do a simple calculation, you see how many you need.”

The UN earlier said it had already exhausted the supply of the vital items in Pakistan, which is itself the world’s biggest producer of so-called winterized tents.

“It is fair to say the indication is that there are not enough tents in the world available to support the requirements,” Andrew MacLeod, chief operations officer in the UN emergency response centre in Islamabad, said.

Meanwhile, Major General Farooq Ahmad Khan made a desperate international appeal for tetanus medicine, saying that Pakistan needed at least 100,000 doses as soon as possible.

“We have an urgent need for anti-tetanus globalin to treat victims who have developed tetanus disease,” Gen Khan told a news conference.

“There are many injured whose wounds have now been affected,” he said.

“We need a maximum number of anti-tetanus globalin. We request everyone abroad to fly this as soon as possible... This medicine must be flown in a quantity of 100,000 as soon as possible.”—AFP