UN refugee chief visits Pakistan quake zone

The head of the UN refugee agency, stunned by the damage in earthquake-ravaged northern Pakistan, warned that urgent work is needed to avert further tragedy as troops race against time to get aid to the most vulnerable before the frigid Himalayan winter sets in.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres met with officials in Pakistani-held Kashmir, toured a tent camp for quake survivors and visited what is left of Balakot, a town largely flattened by the October 8 quake, which killed an estimated 86,000 people and destroyed the homes of more than three million in Pakistan.

A further 1,350 died in Indian-held Kashmir.

Heading into Balakot aboard a UN helicopter, Guterres peered over the shoulders of the Russian crewmen at hillsides covered by the jumbled rubble of what were once homes, shops and schools.

“It is absolutely awful. I have no words to express my feelings,” he said. “I don’t remember ever having seen a disaster of these proportions.”

Guterres urged the world to maintain momentum in recovery efforts. He called it “a political and moral duty to be here and be totally engaged”, emphasising that Pakistan has hosted millions of refugees from war and persecution in neighbouring Afghanistan.

“It is time for the international community to pay back,” he said. “That means rebuilding their lives. It is not only rebuilding the houses, the schools and the roads. It is rebuilding the lives of the people that we are committed to.”

Also seeing the quake zone was actress Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for UNHCR. She visited Balakot and flew to a remote valley aboard a helicopter that brought food, blankets and plastic sheets to improve shelters, UNHCR spokeswoman Vivian Tan said.

Guterres told officials and aid workers they must prepare for thousands of people expected to flee harsh conditions when the snow comes – and ensure that villagers who remain in the ruins of their shattered highland homes get help.

“We are doing our best to ensure that everybody, even in the most remote locations, gets enough support to face the winter and to get through the winter without tragedy,” he said.

The top official in Pakistani-held Kashmir, Sikander Hayat, told Guterres the government expects more than 40,000 people from towns and villages above 5,000 feet to descend to the provincial capital, Muzaffarabad, once the weather worsens.

Air Commander Andrew Walton, head of Nato’s relief team in Pakistan, said providing food and medicine was “a race in all senses of the word” before winter snow sets in and cuts off communication links.

Walton told a news conference in Islamabad an estimated 35,000 people at high altitudes are at risk from extreme cold in Bagh, one of the worst-hit districts in Pakistan’s portion of Kashmir. Nato troops have provided shelter to some 29,000 so far, he said.

Many homeless people are living in tents, and officials say they are hastily building more camps.

“We can survive down here in tents after the snow falls, but in our village we cannot survive after the snow,” said Shah Rahman, 35, one of nearly 3,000 quake refugees living in a lower-level camp that Guterres visited.

Officials say some are likely to stay in their high-altitude villages. Pakistan army Brigadier General Ulhat Hussain said troops are struggling to provide shelters there with sheets of iron and other crude materials.

“Will we have enough shelters? The answer is no,” he said, adding that he expects “hundreds or thousands” more to move to lower-lying areas shortly. “We have colossal work to do.”

Some of the camp residents who crowded around Guterres said they were eager to rebuild their homes.

But Bibi Fatama, whose son and grandson were killed in the quake, said the future holds little promise.

“Our house was destroyed, our animals are all gone. Everything is gone,” she said, sitting in the darkness of the tent she shares with five surviving relatives and cradling her dead son’s baby daughter in her arms.

“Nothing is left.”