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Pakistan aid trickling in

A Pakistani woman cries on the debris of her house destroyed by an earthquake in Ziarat, about 130km south of Quetta, Pakistan, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Veiled mothers huddled with feverish babies in ruined Pakistani villages yesterday as sickness started to bite among earthquake survivors who spent a freezing night beneath open skies.

In crumbled settlements that no aid workers had reached more than a day after the powerful quake that killed at least 215 people, shivering residents begged for shelter, food, medicine — or just any help at all.

“We had so few blankets to cover ourselves during the night that we only had one between six children,” farmer Shahnawaz Khan told a reporter who reached the remote southwestern village of Kan Bangla.

“The cold was so severe that some of our children have fallen ill,” he said, pointing to some wailing infants as their mothers tried to provide them with warmth and comfort.

Khan said some 20 people died when their mud-brick, straw-roofed homes collapsed in the 6.4-magnitude quake, but said they had not had any contact from Pakistani authorities or aid groups.

The village, which lies about 35km from the historic hill town of Ziarat, is one of a cluster in impoverished Baluchistan Province that were worst affected by the quake.

Jaan Baba, an injured elderly man, showed makeshift tents that villagers had constructed with whatever they could scavenge from the shells of their houses. His own house was reduced to a pile of rubble.

“Some of the children do not even have sweaters or shoes and they are very gravely exposed to the weather,” he said.

“Many of our villagers slept in the dry riverbed across the road. No one from the government or any rescue agencies have come to help us,” Baba said. “We need shelter, blankets, food and medical help as soon as possible.”

Most of the inhabitants eke out a living by working at apple farms for which Ziarat and its surrounding villages are famed in Pakistan, but Baba said they would now be busy just trying to survive.

In Kawaz, another badly hit village, survivors huddled around weak campfires.

“It was so cold at night we thought we would freeze,” villager Abdul Qadeer said. “We have been waiting for help but we have no tent, no food, no medicine for my children.”

Fears of further aftershocks kept many people in the open overnight even when their houses had not collapsed. A 6.2-magnitude tremor rocked Baluchistan 13 hours after the initial, pre-dawn quake.

The mayor of Ziarat district hit out at the government for failing to help survivors.

“I am not satisfied with this operation,” Dilawar Kakar said. “The help we expected from provincial and federal government, we are not getting. It is very slow.”

Around 8,000 houses were completely destroyed and another 45,000 were damaged and are at risk of collapsing in aftershocks, he said.

Most of the 30,000 inhabitants of Ziarat itself were also defying the cold and sleeping outside.

“I have got my family in this open playground to sleep because you never know when the earthquake could return,” said Irshad Ahmed, a government official.

“The meager amounts of clothing that most of these people had are now buried in the rubble. What we urgently need are warm clothes, tents and food,” mayor Kakar said.

The army said rescue teams had reached some affected areas late on Wednesday.

“We reached here last night and got tents, blankets, jackets and foods for the victims,” Captain Mohammad Barakullah said in Ziarat.

He said they had initial supplies of 1,500 tents, 2,000 blankets and 300 bags of food for distribution, adding: “More aid is forthcoming.”

The WHO also said it was sending enough medical aid and supplies for 50,000 people.

But as with the 2005 earthquake that killed 73,000 people in northern Pakistan, it was hardline Islamist groups, some with militant links, which were among the first on the scene.
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