Winter weather hampering quake aid

Along a bleak, sleet-drenched street in the town of Abbottabad, Rafeeq Khan, 15, waits at a bus stop. In his arms, he carries his youngest brother, Imad. The child, wrapped in a thick woollen shawl, has a hacking cough and a high fever, and the family, based at their village near Balakot, some 45 km from Abbotabad, are concerned he may have developed pneumonia. Rain and snow fell across Pakistan's earthquake zone for a second straight day on Monday, grounding relief flights and adding to the misery of millions of survivors camped out in tents and crude shelters. Doctors have reported increasing respiratory infections among survivors. "It has been snowing heavily and raining since yesterday. My father is too busy trying to get more plastic sheets to put over our tent, or to buy tin sheets to construct a shelter, so I have brought Imad here, to the Ayub Medical Complex," Rafeeq explained. More than 80,000 people were killed by the 8 October earthquake in northern Pakistan and about 1,300 died in Indian-administered Kashmir. The Pakistan meteorological department said that some parts of the quake zone, which extends from Kashmir into Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), had seen more than 60 cm of snow. Abbotabad, a town of some 100,000 with the best medical facilities in the area, has fast become one of the focal points for quake victims seeking to escape plummeting temperatures and heavy snow that has blocked many roads. "Even the road from Murree to Muzaffarabad was totally blocked on Sunday. We have now come to Abbotabad to try and reach Muzaffarabad from here," said Awais Tirimezi, a volunteer with a local charity. He added that authorities seemed to lack the large, snow shovelling equipment needed to keep roads open. Meanwhile, the situation is said to be particularly critical in the higher mountain regions of the extensive quake zone, where an estimated 400,000 survivors still cling on to life. According to Ishfaq Ahmed, who is organising relief efforts for the Kashmir International Relief Fund, nearly 100 children have died from the cold over the past month in Muzaffarabad and Bagh, the two largest towns in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. The death toll in other areas is unknown - with high altitude villages now almost completely cut off from aid and assistance. "Most people still do not have winterised tents. Thousands of the tents distributed in the early days of the quake are in fact entirely useless now. Because of the weather conditions, the efforts to get tin sheets to people so they can build shelters are being repeatedly disrupted," said Martin Sanders, a British relief worker who has been in the Balakot area since October. About 12 km outside Abbotabad, along the route to the shattered town of Garhi Habibullah, Salimullah, 40, looks glumly at his drenched, canvas tent, the bedding placed outside on rocks during a brief respite from the rain that has been falling almost constantly for the last 24 hours. "I was told this was a strong tent. Look at it now. It has collapsed even though no real snow has fallen yet," said Salimullah, as his family gather in a bedraggled group besides the crumpled shelter. Hundreds of families face a similar plight, and there are bitter complaints about the delay in providing tin sheets needed to construct makeshift shelters. "I have been trying to purchase the sheets for weeks now. But they are just not available in any town near here, including the district headquarter, Mansehra. With tin sheets, we are at least partially protected - and we can light a fire safely to keep warm," Salimullah said. Across the region, as sleet falls covering the ground in a treacherous layer of white, teams in military vehicles use loudspeakers to warn people against lighting fires in tents. In several cases, soldiers are said to have skirmished with families over the issue of fires in the flammable canvas shelters. Dozens of injuries have been caused - but the situation is a desperate one, relief workers say. Efforts have been continuing for much of the past month to get the tin sheets needed to build shelters to people as fast as possible. Giant Chinooks, brought in by the US military soon after the quake, have been lifting truckloads of the sheets each day to areas in Shinkiari, Battagram, Allai, the Kaghan Valley and elsewhere. But now, weather conditions have prevented the choppers from taking to the skies, except for brief interludes of relatively fine weather - and there are fears that by the time sheets reach people, it may be too late. There is widespread agreement that the situation is critical. Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, a spokesman for the Pakistan military, acknowledged on Monday that "conditions are very tough", but added that "all efforts are on to ensure everything needed reaches affected people."