GILGIT, Jan 3: 35 children have so far died of pneumonia in three mountain villages of Kashmir since last week after heavy snowfalls, an official said here on Tuesday.

Regional health director Hasan Khan Abacha said temperature in these areas had plummeted as low as minus 30 Celsius. He said 28 children had died in remote Gultari area on the Line of Control, about 300 km northeast of Islamabad.

Fida Mohammad Nashad, who represents the Northern Areas regional council, put the number at 35 and appealed for help.

“I have written to the civilian and military authorities to do something,” he said.

Abacha said deaths occurred in Matayal, Karbosh and Bunyal villages after temperatures dropped to minus 30 Celsius in heavy snow that cut all road links and even prevented helicopter flights.

He said medicines were available in the area’s main town, Skardu, but these could only be carried by helicopter.

Skardu district health officer Iqbal Beg said there had been a rush of pneumonia patients at the government hospital there and he urged authorities to send child specialist as well as blankets to Gultari.

Skardu and Gultari are to the northeast of Kashmir and NWFP devastated by the earthquake on Oct 8.

The quake zone has been undergoing a wave of cold weather and snow since the weekend, raising fears for the health of more than two million people living in tents or crude shelters patched together from their ruined homes.

Aid workers expect a flood of new cases of respiratory infection once the weather allows people to venture out, but say there had been no spike in sickness or deaths related to the cold in the quake zone so far.—Reuters