Cold temperatures claim new quake victims

Masooda Begum’s three-year-old son Awaid died on Sunday night. On Monday, accompanied by her two older children, she wearily carried his body through the ruins of Bagh to bury him near her native village, 12 km away. “I don’t want to bury him here, amid all this misery and destruction,” Masooda said. “I want to bury him somewhere beautiful, where I can go and talk to him.” Awaid suffered head injuries when the family home on Bagh’s outskirts collapsed in the 8 October earthquake. He had been treated at a field hospital in Bagh set up by volunteer doctors from Rawalpindi. The doctors believe Awaid did not die from these injuries but from the cold and rain. “The child was in a completely stable state,” Dr Himayuan Younis said. “He had suffered concussion and some minor abrasions but was recovering." However, the family was sleeping outdoors, so they were totally unprotected from the elements. “He seems to have developed a chest infection, which probably turned into pneumonia. We gave him medicines but if a pneumonia patient is being drenched in rain and has no blankets or warm clothes, he is destined to die.” Deaths, like Awaid’s, caused by post-quake conditions rather than as a direct result of the tremor, seem likely to increase in the days ahead. British medical relief teams have predicted thousands of quake victims could die from the effects of cold weather, illness and untreated, infected wounds. “It’s a human catastrophe here,” said Alain Pasche, coordinator of UN relief operations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. “There’s no shelter for thousands, and more and more people in search of some place to live are pouring into the bigger cities from nearby villages.” In Bagh, a city of 300,000 people and regarded as one of the region’s most picturesque, large piles of rubble cannot contain the terrible stench of death that rises from the bodies trapped below. Relief work in the area has intensified over the past four days, with the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launching its first operations on Sunday. But with most people still without tents or blankets, its task is monumental. “Look, the first snows have begun to fall,” said local resident Hamid Butt, pointing to the small, white caps on distant hills. “The winds here will be really cold from now on and in a few weeks, snow will cover the town. How can we survive such conditions in tents?” The task of relief workers has been made more difficult by the looting reported in many parts of the city. Desperate locals have in several cases snatched goods off trucks and assaulted relief workers trying to protect the cargo. Many relief teams are now transporting goods only under military escort, causing further delays. Despite these difficulties, life in Bagh showed some signs of returning to normal on Monday as vendors rolled carts stocked with apples and guavas onto the streets, and some general stores opened, stacking their limited supplies on broken shelves. The situation, however, remained grimmer in nearby areas. Roads to many villages, including Chattar, Nerian, Sank, Basooti, Uppar and Mahmood Gali, had been partially opened by military engineers over the past week but rain has caused further landslides. Even when the roads are clear, aid has been slow to reach areas outside the major centres. Villagers encamped along roadsides awaiting food and other aid said they have received nothing. “We come here every day, in the morning, in rain or sunshine or hail, and await relief so we can take it back to our families,” said one elderly villager, Sultan Baba, sitting along the road from Bagh to Chattar. “We have got nothing so far.” His son, Rafiq, added: “All I need is a tent to take to my wife and our small baby. Please, give me a tent, or even a sheet of corrugated iron I can nail somewhere.” The situation for quake victims in many places remains desperate. Many with acute injuries have still only received basic first aid. Others are suffering dysentery after consuming unclean water. But the biggest problem for thousands is the lack of shelter. Entire villages are sleeping outdoors in increasingly harsh conditions, many lacking warm clothing or blankets.