Isolated mountain villages in Pakistan’s earthquake-ravaged North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) face an agonizing choice: abandon their homes and livelihoods to move to emergency tent camps in the lowlands, or risk freezing to death in the fast-approaching winter.
Hundreds of cases of pneumonia are already being reported at higher altitudes in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains, where temperatures are already dropping to below freezing at night. Around 80,000 people are at risk at the northern limits of the NWFP in the Allai Valley, where CARE and our partner, the Surhad Rural Support Program, have already distributed more than 3,000 tents to endangered villages.
CARE is following up the tent distribution with survival packages that include floor mats, blankets, shawls, cooking utensils, and necessary supplies for hygiene. Despite aid efforts by humanitarian organizations, Pakistan’s disaster is on such a scale that the deaths of thousands of people may escape media attention simply because the area affected is so remote. Banna Allai, in the Allai Valley, is at an altitude of 5,000 feet, the start of the snow line. It is reached by a single-lane road that is likely to be inaccessible during long stretches of winter.
A major concern is that lightweight tents providing emergency shelter cannot withstand winter conditions, where the snow is likely to range from 3-10 feet deep, and temperatures drop to -4 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 degrees Celsius). There is a high risk that many people, especially women, children and the elderly, may silently freeze to death during the sub-zero weather.
The major priority for CARE and other aid organizations working in the area is to provide temporary winterized shelters within the next three to four weeks. While the Pakistani army is encouraging villagers to come down from the mountains, there is considerable resistance to that idea on the part of villagers themselves. A serious concern is that once the villagers abandon their livestock and farms, they risk becoming permanently dependent on government handouts. Relocation could prove even more costly in the future.
CARE has been experimenting with several approaches to alternative emergency winterized shelters, which range from providing hard roofs to put over tents, which might be placed in a dug-out depression to shelter them from the wind. Another approach is a novel new design which consists of building a round house, something like a traditional dwelling known as a yurt, with sandbags and an independently supportable roof. With winter fast approaching, however, immediate funding would have to be made available, and teams of villagers would have to be trained in how to set up the new structures.
Funding has become a critical issue. The U.N. only managed to receive around 24 percent of a recent appeal for more than $500 million, and world donors have been slow to react partly because a succession of crises have competed for public attention, and also because in the few weeks before the arrival of a brutal winter, surviving quake victims have appeared to be pulling their lives together. The lack of funding means that humanitarian organizations are in danger of lacking the resources they need when the full impact of winter hits home. Some organizations have already indicated that they may have to suspend relief operations if they do not receive more financial support soon. A major goal of CARE and other humanitarian organizations now is to provide relief before the disaster hits, instead of waiting until thousands die unnecessarily in a catastrophe that can still be avoided.
