Snow, rain hamper Pakistani quake relief

HEAVY rains and overnight light snow added to the misery of earthquake survivors and shut down relief deliveries by helicopter yesterday.

But officials said they were still able to use roads to get food and other supplies to people in remote areas.

The severe weather was a harbinger of the harsh winter ahead that officials fear will add to the death toll with millions of survivors still living rough and dependent on aid.

Pakistan army spokesperson Major Farooq Nasir said no helicopters could fly in Kashmir because of rain and clouds.

“We are using road links to supply food and other essential items to people,” Maj Nasir said.

The 7.6-magnitude quake that struck South Asia on October 8 killed more than 87,000 people and levelled entire towns and villages, leaving more than three million homeless in north-western Pakistan and the country’s part of divided Kashmir.

Most survivors are living in tents and other makeshift homes, with hundreds already suffering from respiratory illnesses, diarrhoea, scabies, tetanus and other ailments.

Survivors and officials alike had hoped that winter would be a little late this year, providing time to get more aid to the area. The first heavy rain since the quake drenched those hopes.

“Today’s rain has wet our tent, and I wish it had delayed for a few weeks,” Shahid Kazmi, a junior government official who has been living in a tent for weeks, said as his two children and wife huddled in blankets donated by aid organisations.

Hollywood celebrity Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, made a three-day visit to Pakistan with actor Brad Pitt to see the damage and the survivors’ plight first hand. Pitt said yesterday he was donating 40 orthopedic beds, worth over €85,000, to a hospital in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

“These people have suffered so much, but they have such tremendous spirit,” a UNHCR statement quoted Pitt as saying. “I’m really moved by the relief effort, the communal spirit of it all.”