PAKISTAN: United Nations weather experts said yesterday that unusually low temperatures and heavy snowfalls would soon hit areas of Pakistani Kashmir, jeopardising efforts to feed and shelter survivors of the devastating earthquake.
Aid agencies have renewed appeals for funds to keep open a lifeline to the millions left homeless in remote parts of the Himalayas by the October 8th quake, many of them injured.
"The situation is getting more and more desperate," said the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said that winter was only three weeks away and initial reports suggested that the weather would be unusually cold in the stricken mountain areas.
"An initial overview indicates that another harsh winter is approaching the earthquake-stricken areas. Snowfall is expected to considerably exceed normal range, both in frequency and quantity," said WMO spokesman Mark Oliver. From December to February, temperatures were likely to be well below normal. "That means even day temperatures are likely to stay several degrees below freezing, especially in the mountainous areas," he added.
The World Health Organisation has warned that there could be a second wave of deaths. "We cannot wait to see images of people freezing to death or dying of preventable disease before we act," said Ala Alwan, a WHO official with responsibility for health action during crises.
UN agencies said that a major donors' meeting in Geneva this week had raised too little and a huge cash shortfall threatened to ground helicopters and interrupt food supplies for survivors.
OCHA said that it had received only $117.4 million, 21.3 per cent of the cash the UN had sought from the international community. The donors' meeting produced pledges of only $16 million in response to an appeal for a sum which the UN raised this week to $550 million from $312 million as the full impact of the disaster and the needs of survivors became clearer. "The response is not enough," said OCHA spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs. "We need money immediately to be able to reach people now, not in two to three months, because people will be dead by then."
The World Food Programme said that it had increased its estimate of the number of people needing aid to 2.3 million, of whom less than a fifth had so far been reached. Its initial estimate of one million people was included in the original UN appeal. The WFP had sought $56 million, but had received only 16 per cent of this and would probably need to appeal again, spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume said. "We need the money now to pre-position the food stocks before mountain roads are cut off, not in February," she added.
Meanwhile, NATO emphasised that its support for relief efforts in Pakistan was only a short-term mission after local opposition leaders raised concerns about the presence of foreign forces on Pakistan's soil.
Local critics attacked President Pervez Musharraf for not seeking parliamentary approval for NATO's deployment this month of some 1,000 troops, chiefly engineering and medical units. The mission is NATO's first substantial presence on the Indian subcontinent and is an early test for the NATO Response Force (NRF), a rapid-reaction unit which is at the centre of efforts to forge a new role for the alliance after the Cold War era.
A NATO air-bridge from bases in Germany and Turkey has so far delivered 580 tonnes of materials, mostly tents, blankets and cooking stoves, to Pakistan.
A Dutch medical team and a Spanish engineering company are due to arrive in Pakistan at the weekend and Polish reinforcements are due there next week. The NATO statement said that NRF forces would total over 1,000. - (Reuters)