PESHAWAR, Nov 9: About 8,000 people are still missing in parts of the NWFP hit by the devastating earthquake on Oct 8, while another 29,306 have been reported dead and 37,364 wounded so far, according to official reports.
The Provincial Relief Commission has confirmed a total of 29,360 deaths in 11 districts of the province. Mansehra district tops the list with 24,511 casualties and 30,585 wounded.
The total number of casualties in Battagram district is 3,232, Abbottabad 515, Kohistan 661, Shangla 423 and Swat seven.
Earlier, the provincial government reported the total as 37,958 casualties. Officials said that previous figures were based on speculations.
An official in the NWFP Crisis Management Cell said that he was not sure whether all these (8,000) people had been buried under the debris of their houses or fell prey to landslides or had migrated to safer places.
“The people might have shifted to other parts of the country or they might have been buried under the rubble,” Major Rehan Firdaus, head of the cell told Dawn.
He said that an average of 1,000 individuals was migrating from the hilly areas daily due to lack of shelter or harsh weather. The Oct 8 earthquake followed by cold weather has caused displacement in the region.
Officials said that large-scale migration was underway and families were heading towards flat areas of the NWFP, Punjab and Sindh from the high altitude parts of quake-hit districts.
The government has set up 148 tent villages for displaced people where 5,465 tents have been provided. So far, 35,573 people had relocated to these tent villages, according to the relief commission.
The district coordination officer, Battagram, Abdul Haleem, said that about 50,000 people had left the worst-hit Alai tehsil of the district, and added that many were those who used to migrate during the winter.
He said that only 700 individuals from the Alai tehsil had shifted to a tent village, set up in Mira, where the army had set up a relief camp.
The official said that the inhabitants of Battagram tehsil did not evacuate the area and they needed at least 20,000 tents.