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| January 6, 2006 | Friday | Zilhaj 5, 1426 |
Heavy snow restricts UN, IOM staff to bases
ISLAMABAD, Jan 5: Heavy snow and rainfall that have triggered many landslides and uprooted thousands of tents in Kashmir and the NWFP have also created security concerns for the United Nations and International Organization for Migration (IOM) staff0 and restricted them to their bases of operation.
An IOM official told Dawn that snow and rains had cut off rural road access and grounded helicopters since Sunday.
“Many tents throughout the region have collapsed and people are struggling to cope with the onset of harsh winter conditions. UN personnel and IOM staff have been restricted to their bases of operations over security concerns with unstable road conditions,” the official said.
With mountain communities cut off for the next few days, IOM started an emergency operation on Monday for people living in the city of Muzaffarabad. Seven teams with 300 plastic sheets each had spread across the city and were assisting locals in protecting their tents from the rain.
“Everything is wet and people are shivering in soaking tents,” says IOM Muzaffarabad field coordinator, Isabelle Giasson.
In Bagh, IOM personnel were also handing out aid to urban residents. In the rain and snow, coordinators were distributing 500 corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheets to the suburb of Gogar Ban, and were setting up 20 distribution points in Bagh to hand out an additional 500 tarpaulins, 900 plastic sheets and 200 sweaters, the IOM official said.
Emergency winterization kits donated by Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) containing two plastic sheets, three blankets and rope have been prepared in Islamabad and are being transported to IOM’s main humanitarian hubs.
Over the next couple of days, depending on road conditions, a total of 2,300 kits will be transported to Bagh, 1,450 to Mansehra, 3,500 to Batagram, 2,000 to Balakot, and 3,000 to Muzaffarabad.
In Batagram, IOM, CARE, Save the Children and other NGO officials have begun to focus their attention on four union councils in Allai tehsil, that are still in need of emergency shelter aid. Field workers in the region report many people are still without “one warm room” to use for the winter.
Providing aid to these people in Batagram and Allai tehsils will be substantially more difficult as the roads in this area have been among the hardest hit by the recent landslides.
The roads into the mountains around Balakot have also been cut off, but roads at the bottom of the valley are still usable, and IOM is expanding its relief services where possible.
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