Health risks grow in emergency camp

Poor sanitation is posing a growing health risk to earthquake survivors sheltering in an improvised camp at a university stadium in Muzaffarabad. Khalida Bhatti, a social worker and resident of the emergency camp in the quake-hit city, cited the lack of latrines and garbage disposal. “Women [particularly] are facing immense problems,” she said. Her comments on Saturday came a week after the powerful earthquake that struck northern Pakistan and India, causing upwards of 38,000 deaths in Pakistan alone and injuring more than 62,000, according to the Pakistan government. About 100 tents have been pitched inside the stadium but there are no toilet facilities there or in the surrounds. Children are defecating inside the campsite, residents say. “Every tent is housing three to four families on average but a few are like us, having around 30 individuals from seven families left by the disaster,” one camp resident said. “In such a situation, how can hygiene be maintained?” Although drinking water is available in the camp, there is none for washing and bathing. With the almost daily rainfall, and snowfall already appearing on mountain peaks, there is a huge shortage of fuel for cooking and heating the tents. Families without young ones and those who have lost family members are mostly unable to collect firewood. Social worker Bhatti said camp residents at least had the basics to survive but conditions varied greatly across the region. “Just look at people living [in] these hills,” she said. “There are no roads to reach them.” She lamented that a week after the quake, neither an organised settlement nor aid distribution centre had been established. UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland on Friday appealed for better coordination of relief efforts, warning there would be “a disaster within a disaster” if this was not achieved.