Oxfam installs emergency water and sanitation

Almost one month after the South Asia earthquake, international charity Oxfam has started installing sanitation facilities in emergency settlements housing quake victims in and around the city of Bagh in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Almost 70 percent of the town’s water supply was destroyed after the 8 October disaster. "The plan is to cover all the quake-affected areas in the district of Bagh by the end of this month. At the moment, we are working in emergency settlements located in and around Bagh city, which we hope to cover by the end of this week. At the same time, we are now looking into setting up separate wash rooms for women considering the cultural sensitivities," Zulfiqar Ali Haidi, a public health engineer working with Oxfam, said in Bagh, some 100 km from Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. An estimated 80 percent of households were damaged across the Bagh district, nearly 8,000 people were killed and a similar number injured in the earthquake, according to local administrators. Nearly 20 spontaneous tented camps that have sprung up in and around Bagh city in the aftermath of the earthquake are housing over 2,500 displaced people. The number is increasing by the day, local officials say. Oxfam is presently set to install proper water and sanitation facilities in 14 emergency settlements. For the rest of the camps, the task is shared between Belgium-based Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF-B), the UK-based Islamic Relief and another Islamic charity, Muslim Hands. Clean water has been a priority, say aid workers. “Bagh town has four main sources of water, all of which are chlorinated now," Kenneth Gibbs, a water and sanitation consultant working with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said in Bagh on Monday. The focus is now shifting to villages around Bagh, like Dhirkot and Kahota, he added. The rural population is scattered and has access to clean water from natural springs so it is less exposed to health risks. "That's why at this point we are focusing on the high-risk areas and here we need to go to urban areas first and rural areas later," Gibbs said.