ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: The Cabinet Committee on Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation on Saturday asked the governments of Azad Kashmir and NWFP to collect data of quake dead and injured to pay compensation to a maximum number of victims before Eid, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.

Briefing journalists on the meeting, Sheikh Rashid said it urged the general public to donate a maximum number of tents and blankets for the quake-stricken area where winter is expected to set in soon.

“We have got plenty of medicines and ration. But what we need are tents and blankets,” he said. Pakistan, he added, has also appealed the international community for these most essential items.

“The local industry has also been asked to produce 300,000 tents which are needed in the quake-affected areas of AJK and NWFP.”

He said new tent villages will be set up at Fateh Jang and Chakwal to accommodate people displaced by the earthquake while ‘transit’ will be provided to them in Islamabad’s sector H-11.

The halls of four schools in Rawalpindi will be converted into makeshift hospitals for patients with bone injuries, he added.

The minister said the Punjab government has been asked to make arrangements for 25,000 extra beds in hospitals to cope with the rush of wounded persons.

Sheikh Rashid said each cabinet member has been asked to visit the affected areas for one day.

“They should go there purely for relief work without any protocol,” he said.

In reply to a question, the minister said the relief work will pick up pace once all the roads are opened for traffic, though the helicopters are reaching even the far off areas.

The minister said there were some 25 per cent areas which can be called ‘inaccessible’ and are mostly situated in Neelum Valley and Kaghan Valley.

“But aid and relief operation in these areas is going on through helicopters,” he added.

He said there have been a few incidents of looting of trucks carrying relief goods, but the situation is now improving gradually.

“The people who loot these trucks have got nothing to do with quake affectees. They will not be spared,” Sheikh Rashid said.—APP