|
Military copters deliver aid to Kashmir
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-18 19:12
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani and U.S. military
helicopters delivered aid at a brisk pace to the earthquake-stricken region of
Kashmir on Tuesday amid warnings from the World Food Program that half a million
survivors have yet to receive desperately-needed help.
Pakistani soldiers unload one of the twenty
Dubai-donated large tents for the people affected by the Oct. 8
earthquake, after they were airlifted by a German army helicopter, to a
base in the town of Bagh, in Pakistani Kashmir, Tuesday Oct. 18, 2005.
[AP] |
Choppers landed under sunny skies in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's
portion of the divided Kashmir region, bringing tents and other supplies, while
relief workers set up field hospitals to treat thousands of stranded, injured
people.
The relief effort is one of the most challenging the world has ever faced,
according to James Morris, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program.
"The aid agencies have managed to give some help to hundreds of thousands of
people, but there are an estimated half a million more people out there in
desperate need, who no one has managed to reach," Morris said from Dubai.
"People don't just need food — first of all they need shelter, blankets and
medical assistance — then food and clean water."
The WFP said hundreds of villages still had received no help, and that
thousands of lives were at stake. Morris said temperatures are dropping as
winter draws near, raising the risk of hypothermia among survivors. He warned
that there is "very little time left" to avoid further catastrophe.
Authorities warned that exposure and infections could drive the death toll up
from 54,000 as the harsh Himalayan winter loomed. Landslides caused by the
7.6-magnitude earthquake on Oct. 8 cut off many roads, and they could take weeks
to clear.
Maj. Farooq Nasir, an army spokesman, said smaller helicopters would take
relief goods brought by big choppers to forward bases in the Neelum and Jhelum
valleys on to remote mountain villages.
The United Nations said more than 80 helicopters were flying, and that the
world body was planning to send up to 150,000 tents for the homeless, in
addition to about 30,000 already distributed.
It said field hospitals with operating theaters were being set up, improving
the survival chances for those requiring urgent surgery, but that the large
numbers of patients were still "overwhelming."
Keith Ursel, Muzaffarabad operations head for the World Food Program, said
hundreds of villages had not received aid, and that thousands of lives were at
stake.
"We need 570 tons of food every day to feed the affected people stranded in
these villages," he said. "It is always a mixture of starvation, wounds or rough
weather and fear which lead to massive deaths in such a situation."
Most of the deaths were in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, while 1,360 people
died in the Indian-held part of the divided region.
India has provided some aid to Pakistan, but turned down a Pakistani
suggestion that it send military helicopters — without crews — to help with
relief work. Pakistan, which has fought two of its three wars with India over
Kashmir, said it could not have the Indian military involved directly in relief
efforts.
Some 80,000 people were injured in the quake. The United Nations has
estimated 3.3 million were left without homes and need food and shelter ahead of
the approaching winter, with snow already falling in some affected areas.
Maj. Gen. Farooq Ahmed Khan, Pakistan's top relief official, said 33,000
tents and 130,000 blankets have been distributed. He said 260,000 tents and 2
million blankets were needed.
Eighty Pakistani soldiers were flown by helicopter into the Neelum Valley,
about 15 miles northeast of Muzaffarabad, to carry emergency rations and other
relief supplies on foot to those in need, the army said.
Soldiers also drove mule teams with relief supplies to some of the region's
steep-sided villages, crossing people with bundles on their shoulders carefully
walking down to lower elevations.
The U.N. International Labor Organization warned that more than 1.1 million
jobs may have been lost as a result of the earthquake, adding that employment
programs were urgently needed to lift millions of people out of poverty deepened
by the disaster.
There were some signs of normalcy returning to Muzaffarabad on Tuesday, amid
the devastation. Some shops reopened for business, and a military-run
telecommunications company set up camps where residents can make telephone calls
or send e-mails and faxes, free of charge.
|
