Share this story!            

Disease, rain, spell doom for quake survivors

* Second death wave about to begin, fears DCO

By Iqbal Khattak

MEIRA TENT VILLAGE: Pneumonia will kill a huge number of children in earthquake-hit areas if warm clothes and winterised tents were not provided to survivors immediately, Dr Abdul Jamil, United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund team leader, told Daily Times on Thursday.

“Weather in earthquake-hit areas will be murderous,” said Battagram District Coordinator Officer Abdul Halim. “Not a single winterised tent is provided to any survivor in my district,” he said. Mercury could go below freezing point in Allai district, he added. “The second death wave is about to begin.”

Dr Nirtor Perdomo Gacis said his team was receiving 150 patients here daily and most were diarrhoea or skin disease cases. “We should be ready for an epidemic, probably diarrhoea and scabies,” he added.

Dr Jamil said aid organisations were running out of time and had only two weeks to provide people with winterised tents, warm blankets and cloths. He warned that the Allai district was facing a “catastrophe”. “If we cannot evacuate people from there or make alternative arrangements to help them they will be wiped out by the harsh winter,” he warned.

Snowfall started in Allai and the area was forecasted to receive around eight feet of snow, he said. “It is miserable to live in this simple tent during winter. They all are going to die if winterised tents are not provided to the survivors immediately,” said Dr Ziaullah Khan, a United Kingdom relief worker.

Also, UN officials warned that widespread rain could be disastrous for their struggle to contain an outbreak of acute diarrhoea in tent camps. Heavy rainfall sunk the Battagram and Shangla districts into darkness and brought temperature down.

There have been at least 200 cases and possibly around 750 at one camp for homeless earthquake survivors in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, amid fears that it could be cholera, said WHO. “Rain would be disastrous,” said WHO emergency coordinator Rachel Lavy. “Diarrhoeal illness and rain water go hand in hand,” she added.

Rain started in northern Pakistan and parts of Kashmir early on Thursday and was due to continue on Friday, while snow is expected at night, said the Meteorological Department.

Aid workers said they were now focusing on preventing life-threatening diarrhoea at the camps in Muzaffarabad, by teaching people how to keep clean, digging new latrines and setting up an isolation tent for the sick.

UN officials are still investigating whether the cases are cholera, but added that there are other waterborne microbes that could be equally serious. “We are taking it as seriously as if it were cholera,” said Jan Vandemoortele, the UN Emergency Coordinator in Pakistan. “We are still awaiting confirmation but this is in line with what we have been saying, that sanitation is a potential time-bomb.”

Claudia Hudspeth, UNICEF’s head of operations in Azad Jammu Kashmir, estimated that around 25 percent - 750 people - at the university ground camp in Muzaffarabad had been affected by diarrhoea. “If there is rain it will escalate the situation,” she said. “The hygiene situation is terrible in the camp. There is open defecation, kids are playing around. It is quite a mess.”

Home | National

Share this story!