Kashmiris fear icy death as winter looms

Pakistani earthquake victims fight for relief goods during the distribution of aid items at Balakot in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province yesterday. The 7.6-magnitude quake, which struck Pakistan-controlled Kashmir on October 8, killed more than 25,000 people and has left some 2.5 million people homeless. PHOTO: AFP

The UN agency said the international relief effort must focus on keeping children alive in the weeks ahead. It said it was sending high protein biscuits, boots and sweaters for children, blankets, water containers, plastic tarpaulins, tents, medical supplies and blankets to affected areas.

"With wintry conditions arriving in the higher elevations, children are facing a potentially deadly combination of cold, malnutrition, and disease," Unicef Executive Director Ann Veneman said in a statement from New York on Thursday.

"Most housing has been destroyed in the hardest-hit areas, so the survival of thousands of young children is now at stake," Veneman said.

Routine immunisation coverage in the quake zone is about 60 per cent for young children, so hundreds of thousands are unprotected against deadly diseases such as measles, Unicef said. It said it was sending Vitamin A to the region to boost immune systems of children, who are more vulnerable to measles if weakened by exposure and malnutrition.

Indian Kashmiri villager Rajbibi says it was a miracle that she survived last week's deadly earthquake that struck the mountainous regions of northern Pakistan and India and killed tens of thousands.

The 60-year-old woman fears she may not be as lucky when temperatures dip to freezing levels during the fast-approaching winter. But she says death is beginning to look welcoming.

"I'd rather die than live like this," said Rajbibi, lying on pine branches under a plastic sheet held up by wooden sticks. The makeshift tent was beside a highway, exposed to a chill in the air, which heralds winter in the Himalayan region.

There were about a dozen such tents on the pine tree-covered mountainside, sheltering victims from isolated and devastated communities.

Most of them hope to get over the disaster and rebuild their ravaged lives. But before they are able to do that, they need shelters that will protect them from the harsh winter.

The problem is much more acute in northern Pakistan, which bore the brunt of Saturday's earthquake and where an estimated one million people have lost their homes.

But officials in the Karnah region of Indian Kashmir, close to the frontier, say there are tens of thousands of homeless on this side of the border too who are seriously under threat if they are not given alternative housing or thick tarpaulin tents.

Snowfall has already started on the upper reaches and villages are expected to be covered by snow by early November.

Many survivors complained that neither had they got tents nor have they been promised alternative housing.

"Tents are more valuable than gold," said Mansoor Ahmed, 22, a student in Dildar village, where hundreds are living under plastic sheets and improvised tin sheds.

Residents are already reporting colds, coughs and fear an outbreak of pneumonia soon.

"We will die if we don't get tents but we have got nothing," said Askiya Begum, 45, holding her young nephew near her shelter built of wooden planks, tin and plastic sheets.