Dire need for clean water in many quake villages

Hundreds of villages in northern Pakistan are without water after the October 8 earthquake that killed over 80,000 people and left 3.5 million without shelter, triggered landslides and split mountains, leaving natural springs dry and breaking water pipes. While aid efforts have concentrated on providing shelter and food, the need for water – given the propensity of mountain rivers and streams in the quake zone - has not been such a high priority and assessments of affected villages have only just begun. This means that villages could be without a water supply for at least one month, said Roger Goethe, a water supply and sanitation specialist for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “Only quick assessments of some of the villages have been made,” Goethe said. “But we have not received a clear picture of what kind of needs there are. It is much more difficult to go up into the mountains and make an assessment in each village and really understand the damage than it is to take up food in a helicopter,” he said. Bureaucracy is also impeding the process as aid agencies have to rely on the local government for information on affected villages. An initial assessment by the Directorate of Local Government and Rural Development Department, which took three weeks to compile, concluded that over 400,000 people are without a safe water source in three districts, with 103 villages in Muzaffarabad, 58 villages in Bagh and 25 villages in Poonch in need of clean water supplies. Goethe says that UNICEF has agreed to fund water rehabilitation work in 200 villages in the three districts but there is a lack of implementing partners. He also said that aid agencies and NGOs lack the specialist knowledge needed to rehabilitate water supplies. “Rehabilitation of water supplies can’t be done without cooperation, we need partners and this is what we are lacking. Local government has very limited resources and most NGOs who are here are not qualified to do it,” said Goethe. Lack of water has had severe implications on survivors’ health. According to Dr Zulfkar Ali, who has been visiting villages in the remote Machiara valley on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), there has been a dramatic increase in scabies and diarrhoea. “The water issue is a big threat. After the earthquake, the springs here are totally finished. Pipeline facilities are urgently needed and there hasn’t been any relief here,” Ali said. Assessing shelter needs in the Machiara valley, a team from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that water was a main concern for survivors, who must walk over an hour to the nearest spring. “We saw children as young as eight years old going to fetch water. And it’s not an easy path, it’s a steep mountainous path,” said Claude-Andre Nadon, a logistics coordinator with IOM. Some snow has already settled near villages in the area: when heavy winter snowfall begins, the journey to collect water will take longer and will be much more dangerous. “We have no water. As well as shelter, we need water,” said Sakineh from the village of Dana as a group of women around her nodded. “When the snow comes, we will have to eat it,” she said.