PAKISTAN: Almost two million people still living in tents in Pakistan a year after the devastating earthquake are at risk from the Himalayan winter, Oxfam warns

At least 1.8 million people living in makeshift shelters and tents are at risk from the Himalayan winter a year after an earthquake ravaged northern Pakistan, the international aid agency Oxfam said on Wednesday (October 4). The 7.6. magnitude quake on October 8, 2005, killed more than 73,000 people in northern Pakistan, a further 1,500 in Indian Kashmir and rendered more than three million destitute. "Less than a fifth of the affected families have begun rebuilding their permanent houses," Farhana Faruqi Stocker, head of Oxfam International, Pakistan, told a news conference in Islamabad "As winter is approaching fast, there will be very few people who will be living over the winter months in permanent homes. We in Oxfam International, we estimate that approximately 1.8 million people will be living in makeshift transitional shelters over the winter months," she added. She said a recent Oxfam survey of 17 earthquake-hit villages found that virtually all those who were living in tents lacked adequate protection against the harsh winter weather of the region. Other agencies estimate fewer people are at risk, but the numbers still run into hundreds of thousands. Before last winter, relief agencies had feared a second wave of deaths from cold and sickness among survivors living in makeshift shelters and unsanitary camps, but the weather was mercifully mild. Relief agencies fear the winter won't be as kind for a second year running, a prediction which is adding to the worries of the survivors. But most concerned are those whose land was swept away by the quake because prospects of them being able to have permanent houses are very dim. "We are living in great discomfort in tents because all our lands were eroded by the earthquake. It has happened to many people - they are all greatly distressed," said Mohammad Bashir Kiyani whose house was swept away in the quake. Aid agencies are equally concerned about the plight of the landless people. Oxfam advocate, Kate Simpson, said those made landless by the quake are the forgotten people. "If your house collapses and if the government assesses it as destroyed, you'll get 75,000 rupees as a minimum. If your land and house disappears, at this point you will get nothing. So this is a very important issue," said Simpson. Forgotten group or not, the landless are losing patience with the government's apathy towards their plight. "The government has still not given us land to live on. We have rented this place. We have paid 30,000 rupees to put up our shelters on this land," grumbled Raja Irshad Ahmed, a local teacher whose house had been totally swept away. But Stocker defended the Pakistani government, acknowledging the enormity of the task ahead. "Reconstruction, recovery has never been easy. When we look at Japan, which is the world's second largest economy, we see it taking five years to rebuild 1,40,000 homes which were completely destroyed in Kobe earthquake in 1995. Now obviously government of Pakistan does not have that wealth," she said. The Oxfam report termed the progress of recovery as patchy and the pace of construction of housing and infrastructure as slow, compounded by administrative problems and corruption.

ITN Source | October 5, 2006

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