UN to begin earthquake aid airlift to Pakistan

The United Nations is beginning a major air operation this week to bring aid to earthquake survivors in Pakistan's mountains.

The United Nations is beginning a major air operation this week to bring aid to earthquake survivors in Pakistan's mountains.

"The real priority is the highlands. The aim is to get their food and shelter needs in as fast as we possibly can before winter sets in and then avoid a flow of people down the hill," said senior UN official Pat Duggan in Muzaffarabad, the ruined capital of Pakistani Kashmir, today.

The October earthquake killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan, most of them in Pakistani Kashmir. About three million people were affected, and many of them are still in need of emergency assistance.

The United Nations and other relief agencies say communities need shelter and food supplies to get them through the winter by the start of December when winter weather is expected to close in, severely hampering road and air transport.

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Doctors in Kashmir have begun a campaign to immunise 800,000 children against measles, tetanus, whooping cough, diphtheria and polio before the winter bites.

An immunisation drive was also launched in North West Frontier Province, another badly hit area in Pakistan.

Children living in remote mountain villages, cut off by landslides, were particularly vulnerable due to malnutrition.

One camp in Muzaffarabad has already had more than 500 cases of acute diarrhoea, and aid workers are struggling to improve water and sanitation facilities.