Disaster the rest of world forgot

PAKISTAN: Six weeks after the massive earthquake that devastated parts of Pakistan, the United Nations and relief agencies are racing against time to avert a horrendous, avoidable humanitarian tragedy.

As winter closes in, aid agencies fear the world's failure to react quickly enough has made a second disaster a terrifying prospect. About 80,000 died in the immediate aftermath of the quake, and the agencies believe another 80,000 could now perish.

As the first heavy snowfalls hit the high valleys most affected by the earthquake, senior UN officials warn that up to 380,000 people in these areas still need emergency housing over the next two or three weeks, almost double earlier estimates. Despite many promises of long-term help from the international community, immediate relief aid is still only trickling through.

Only US$216 million ($310 million) has so far been committed or pledged to the UN's relief appeal for US$550 million, less than 40 per cent. By comparison, at the same stage, the appeal for the South Asian tsunami, was almost 90 per cent complete.

Pakistan announced last weekend that its request for US$5.2 billion in aid had now been exceeded, with more than US$5.4 billion in pledges. But relief agencies say that most of this referred to long-term loans, rather than immediate help.

"We need more money and we need it now," said a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in New York. "We are still at the life-saving rather than the reconstruction phase and our operations are dependent on the flow of money coming in."

Andrew Macleod, the UN's chief of operations in Pakistan, said: "Over the next couple of weeks or so, we have to house between 350,000 and 380,000 people who are living on the edge of the snowline or who will come down from above it. Then we need to keep up the supply lines of food and medicine. We have to distribute between 800 and 1000 emergency shelters every day and 40,000 tents over the next 15 or so days in order to protect people from the winter."

A report by Oxfam said earlier warnings that the aftermath of the earthquake could kill as many as the disaster itself, still held true. The Red Cross in Pakistan said it was a "race against time".

The organisation was the first agency to deliver aid to the village of Chham in the Jhelum valley, where about 4000 households are inaccessible by road because of landslides, and will soon be inaccessible even by helicopter when the snow sets in within the next 15 days. The first of the heavy snowfalls - which can rise to as much as 4.5m in villages such as Rinja and Chittrian near Chham - have already begun, and many are still without tents or warm clothing.

Both the UN and relief agencies blame the slowness of aid on limited media coverage at the outset, due to the inaccessibility of the stricken areas, and the fact that, after a year of such tragedies, many country's coffers are exhausted.

- INDEPENDENT