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But one month after South Asia's monster October 8 earthquake flattened entire communities and killed more than 87 300 people in the Himalayan mountains, there is barely enough money to keep relief helicopters flying, and no talk yet of rebuilding.

Survival all that matters
Survival is still all that matters for more than 3 million people who lost homes in the quake - and with an icy winter bearing down, survival is anything but assured.

"There just is not going to be enough shelter for all the homeless," said Sacha Bootsma, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. "People will simply freeze to death." Pakistan said Monday that about 334 000 tents had been delivered to quake survivors, just over half of the 600 000 that UN officials say are needed.

Forecasters predict temperatures will dip to minus 25 degrees Celsius in some stricken areas, and five meters of snow for the season.

1.7 million will lack protection
About 1.7 million people won't have enough protection against the elements without an immediate and significant ramp-up in aid, Bootsma said.

An estimated 86 000 people died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir and its North West Frontier Province, and 1 350 in Indian-held Kashmir. In India, up to 140 000 are homeless.

The mountain village of Chaamb, a 20-minute helicopter ride east of the Pakistani Kashmir hub of Muzaffarabad, is emblematic of the slow pace of relief. Hundreds died in the town of 3 000 and two-thirds of the homes collapsed, but it received its first aid shipment only on November 4, resident Mohammad Aslam Raza said Monday.

"Rations, tents and blankets are all needed," he said, adding: "We're so thankful for all the help." In the village of Jura, just east of the frontier with India, UN workers on Monday handed supplies to the Pakistani army for distribution, while residents waited behind a rusty barbed wire fence.

Still thousands in the hills
"There are still thousands of people in the hills in very difficult conditions and we hear often of children dying of disease and hunger," said the town's schoolteacher, 24-year-old Wajad Iqbal Sheikh.

And the danger does not go away for those who reach shelter in relief camps. British charity Oxfam warned Monday of a looming health crisis in tent camps that have popped up throughout Pakistan's quake zone, most still lacking adequate clean water and sanitation.

"Unless conditions are improved in these camps, diseases like cholera could spread like wildfire," said Oxfam quake relief head Jane Cockin. "If disease does break out in the camps, the number of deaths could far exceed those in danger in their villages."

Acute diarrhoea, tetanus and measles have already killed dozens of people since the quake, and an unknown number have died due to lack of medical treatment. The winter could bring hypothermia, pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses - with the very young and very old likely to be the main victims.

Calls for aid ignored
Despite apocalyptic predictions from senior UN officials, aid money simply has not come through.

The United Nations said Monday it has received just US$83.9 million (€71 million) of the US$550 million (€465 million) it has asked for, with about US$48.7 million (€41.2 million) more pledged.

Tens of millions of dollars are needed just to get through November, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Western victims favoured
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf at first avoided criticising the international community but last week lashed out at what he called a double standard, saying Western disaster victims would get more help.

"I know that the contributions to Katrina were much more. Did the US need more aid than Pakistan and ... these poor people in these remote areas?" Musharraf told the BBC on Saturday.

A month after the Indian Ocean tsunami - which killed hundreds of Western tourists in addition to the tens of thousands of residents - the UN and aid agencies had taken in more than US$4 billion in pledges, UN humanitarian chief coordinator Jan Egeland hailed the response as historic.

Not improving fast enough
Egeland has been far less optimistic about the earthquake response. He said Monday that things are improving, but not fast enough.

"We're all slightly more optimistic than we were two weeks ago, but the second wave of deaths is to some extent happening as we speak," he said from the United Nations in New York. "I hope we can meet the test, but on that the jury is still out."

Egeland had warned ahead of an October 26 donors conference in Geneva that if donors did not give money soon, there would be consequences. They didn't, and aid officials now say the results are being felt on the ground.

"We couldn't go ahead with a tent pipeline distribution because we didn't have the money," Action for Hunger spokesman John Sauer told The Associated Press.

The United Nations, which warned on October 28 that it would need to reduce its helicopter relief missions soon due to under funding, planned to announce details of its cutbacks later Tuesday, exactly a month after the quake.

Paul Miller, CEO of the aid group Plan International, which focuses on children, said the lack of donor funds, inaccessible mountain terrain and oncoming winter have combined in "a perfect storm" hampering relief efforts.

The news isn't all bleak
The 52 nations involved in the relief effort included Pakistan's traditional rival India. The two opened the Kashmir frontier to relief supplies Monday, and plan to allow civilian crossings soon amid hope that disaster diplomacy can end a half-century of distrust.

The US sent helicopters from bases in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and an Army field hospital to treat the injured. NATO pledged a thousand troops.

Ordinary Pakistanis flocked to help their countrymen, pulling victims out of the rubble in the early days, and walking for kilometres to hand out clothes and food to survivors.

But with a light snow already sprinkling some Himalayan villages, many fear the efforts so far will not avert a second calamity.

"It would be a fool to say that anyone in this sort of situation is confident," said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for UNICEF. "This is an aid operation that is still trying to catch up." – (Sapa-AP)

Read more: Quake endangers 40 000 pregnancies

November 2005
 

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