Stark choices face Sultan Rehman, a farmer stranded high in a valley devastated by the earthquake, and time is rapidly running out.
One month ago the 7.6 magnitude earthquake violently upended his peaceful world in Sosal, a small hamlet perched on a mountain ledge about 130km north of Islamabad. His house was crushed, his brother was killed and his family was left clinging to life in perilous conditions.
Now the icy Himalayan winter is closing in fast, with the first snows predicted within two weeks. By January the temperature will have plunged to minus 15?C and the snow could be almost 3m deep. So the sensible option for Rehman, a thoughtful man with a tidy beard, seems obvious -- to gather his family, pack his few belongings and trek down to the valleys below the snowline where aid agencies and the Pakistani army are pitching vast tented camps.
PHOTO: AP
But it is not so simple. For the conservative farmer, leaving means abandoning his food stocks, exposing his wife and daughters to unwelcome outside attention and allowing his most valuable assets -- three buffalo and one cow -- to die. Or eating them first.
"We are really in two minds," said Rehman, standing outside a rough tent near the rubble of his old house. "If we leave now, we lose everything. If we stay, we could die. I just don't know."
The aid effort in northern Pakistan is now focused on about 350,000 homeless survivors living in the craggy mountainous areas above the snowline. A narrow window of opportunity to save them is closing fast.
Snows are predicted in areas above 600m in the coming week. Supplies of tents are coming through but not fast enough. Doctors have reported several hundred cases of pneumonia and, as temperatures plummet, they fear many more. Anxious talk of a "second wave of death" is gaining currency.
"Many people will die and many will be children as they are most vulnerable," Czech doctor Dagmar Chocholaclova told reporters in Ratnoi village.
Hesitant donors
Yet wealthy Western countries and other donors remain hesitant. An emergency UN appeal seeking US$550 million has received just US$133 million; non-UN agencies have received about US$232 million. In contrast, one month after the tsunami in Southeast Asia last December, US$4 billion had come in. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf accuses the West of double standards.
"I know that the contributions to Katrina were much more," he told the BBC. "Did the US need more aid than Pakistan?"
Acknowledging the disparity, US President George W. Bush urged Americans to be more generous.
"Once again, the world is called to comfort those affected by a terrible natural catastrophe," he said on Wednesday.
Despite the delays and indifference, much aid is finally getting through. About 370,000 tents have been delivered, according to the UN, and about 300,000 more are on their way. A fleet of 78 helicopters from around the world is patrolling the mountain skies.
In the valleys below military engineers are clearing landslides and opening roads into the worst-hit areas.
The question is whether the aid effort will be fast enough or big enough to save everyone. The UN estimates that of the 350,000 survivors living above the snowline, 150,000 will descend into tented camps and the rest will stay put. In places like Sosal, desperate villagers are having to make life-and-death decisions.
Death trap
Rehman, like every man in Sosal, keeps a gun at home. Up to 100 men and their families are reluctant to leave because of murder charges relating to old land disputes, said Khavagul Swati, a former district mayor.
But the dangers of staying remain. Aftershocks continue to rock the area, often several times a day.
Many villagers doubt the tents will last the winter. But they are the lucky ones -- half of Sosal is still living rough.
Mehmoud, who has children, lives 15m away under a precarious shelter cobbled together from old roof beams, plastic sheeting, palm fronds and tin sheeting. He initially figured he could tough out the winter. But when the unforgiving winter really starts to bite, it will be a freezing death trap. He said he had had enough.
"If the road doesn't open soon we will walk," he said. "To stay here like this is madness. My family will die," he said.
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