ISLAMABAD/MUZAFFARABAD, Oct 22: Two weeks after the Oct 8 earthquake, the United Nations on Saturday warned that all the money in the world could not buy time for survivors and called for still more tents and helicopters.

Jan Vandemoortele, UN humanitarian coordinator for Pakistan, painted the grimmest picture yet of the threat still facing tens of thousands of people in Azad Kashmir and parts of NWFP.

“The scarcest commodity at this time is time. Money cannot buy time, and the weather is against us and winter is closing in,” Mr Vandemoortele told a news conference in Islamabad.

The aid effort needs up to 200,000 more tents, 50 more helicopters and extra sanitation equipment, and has to get enough food near mountain areas to feed one million people for six months, UN and aid agency officials told the conference.

The first of three British Chinook choppers arrived on Saturday and the World Bank pledged more cash to aid the cost of rebuilding regions.

The engineering battalion promised by Nato to help reach untold numbers of quake survivors is needed right now, an international aid official said.

“The emphasis is on the need for road engineers. If we can pen the roads, that would solve everything,” World Food Programme spokeswoman Mia Turner said, referring to Nato’s move.

“More than 2,000 villages have to be reached and they have to be reached by roads,” she said two weeks after the shattering earthquake killed more than 53,000 people and wrecked the few roads which wound high into the hills.

“If these people were connected, we wouldn’t be carrying stuff up and down mountains on mules,” she said as another train of the rented animals set off up into the hills from a village above the destroyed AJK capital of Muzaffarabad.

Each mule can carry 100 kg, but like everything else in the disaster zone, they are in short supply.

PROPOSAL DETAILS: A Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said a proposal on opening the Kashmir border had been conveyed to India on Saturday, along with a call for talks.

The spokeswoman also responded to the relief centre offer by India, saying it could be discussed when officials from the two sides meet, hopefully by the end of the month. India has offered to set up three relief centres along a de facto border dividing it from Pakistan in the Kashmir region.

“Pakistan has given us a proposal for five crossing points at the LoC in order to facilitate relief and rehabilitation work in earthquake-affected areas,” an Indian foreign ministry statement said.

The Pakistan army is working around the clock to open roads covered by landslides or swept away by the quake in Azad Kashmir and adjoining North West Frontier Province.

Lt Gen Salahuddin Satti said he hoped the road up Azad Kashmir’s Jhelum valley would be re-opened in a week, but it would take six weeks for the nearby Neelum valley.

In some parts of Azad Kashmir, people are desperate enough to fight each other for food aid or loot supply trucks.

The disaster relief chief has revised upward the quake death toll to 53,182 and said another 75,146 were injured in the earthquake.

“The casualty figures are now 53,182 dead and 75,146 injured,” Major General Farooq Ahmad Khan told a news conference.

Officials say between 10 and 20 per cent of affected areas have not received supplies or medical care despite up to 100 relief flights daily by Pakistani, US, German and Japanese helicopters.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said Pakistan would need billions to rebuild.

NATO RESPONSE: “Nato will start its second air bridge operation and lift 10,000 tents from UNHCR warehouse to Islamabad,” Nato DASG Ambassador Maurits Jochems told reporters and offered that Pakistan may also use its sea-lift capability for bulky items.

About Pakistan’s request for more helicopters Brigadier General Antonius Stik, chief of the Nato operational liaison team in Pakistan said, around 40 belonging to the United States and Germany were already operating in the affected areas.

Stik said Nato has huge capacity of airlifting but was only allowed four slots at the Islamabad airport as there was too much air movement.

He said he was discussing with the Pakistani authorities possibility of using the airfields at Peshawar and Lahore or some other option for swifter delivery of relief goods.

He said they could use the heavy-lift helicopters to move earth moving equipment on roads closed due to landsliding and start clearing from either end. —AFP/APP

Our Correspondent adds: Mr Vandemoortele warned on Saturday that only the world’s committed support could prevent thousands of deaths from biting cold, hunger and disease.

“Will we succeed? We can only say that we will do our best and we are in the hands of the international community, we have to keep the pipeline alive,” he added.

Explaining the cause of poor international response to the catastrophe, the UN official said there was no footage of the incident that could have moved the people. “Whatsoever is being shown is the consequence of the disaster,” he said and added that donor fatigue could yet be one other reason for the less than expected response.

Chris Lom of the International Office of Migration told the conference the total requirement for tents was between 337,000 and 541,000. So far 120,000 have been contributed by the international community and the Pakistan government, with another 200,000 in the pipeline.

“In other words there is a remaining need for tents in addition to those in the pipeline of between 50,000 to 200,000 tents.”

The UN is also looking for alternative shelter arrangements ahead of winter.

The briefing was informed that light engineering, military and Nato would be playing a major role in this regard. The other concern expressed at the press conference by the UN representatives was that of deteriorating sanitary situation.

SANITATION: “Human excreta is a ticking time bomb,” said Bill Fellows of the United Nations Children’s Fund.

He said the victims need to be removed from the 150,000 tons of faeces excreted every day. “If we don’t get sanitation systems in place we are running the risk of a potential second humanitarian disaster, something that we can still avoid,” he said.

German Valdavia of the World Food Programme said they need to pre-position enough food to bases from where it could be mobilised easily and quickly after weather conditions change after Nov 15.

“Our task is to feed one million people every day for the next six months,” he said.

A WHO official told media persons at the briefing that the biggest challenge for them was access and there was no shortage of medicines or medical supplies.

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