More than 300,000 survivors of last year's catastrophic South Asian earthquake are at risk of being cut off from food supplies this winter, the UN warned yesterday, as the season's first snows began to blanket the devastated disaster zone.
Rain and snow have begun falling in quake-wracked northern Pakistan in recent days, foreshadowing what relief officials say will be an early and harsh Himalayan winter.
Ahead of the foul weather, the UN World Food Program has positioned nearly 10,000 tonnes of emergency food at base camps in Kashmir and surrounding areas to feed those who can't get to food or run out, WFP spokesman Amjad Jamal said in Islamabad.
More than 80,000 people were killed and another 3.5 million left homeless when the massive 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck northern Pakistan and India on Oct. 8, last year.
Many quake survivors couldn't prepare for winter as they normally would because they spent the summer rebuilding their homes or because they were financially ruined, Jamal said.
Others live in valleys or mountaintops where heavy snow or rain-induced landslide could further isolate them.
About 250,000 people are at risk of being cut off from food in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and between 50,000 and 70,000 are vulnerable in Pakistan's side of Kashmir, a divided territory that is also claimed by India, Jamal said.
The WFP has also procured five helicopters to airlift the sick or deliver emergency goods.
Another 36,000 are still in refugee camps at lower altitudes receiving WFP aid.
This year's winter is forecast to hit earlier than usual and bring heavier than usual snows, Jamal said.
But the aid situation is expected to be somewhat better than last year, when about 400,000 quake victims could only be reached by helicopter.
Landslides or floods simply washed away the places most of the remaining refugees had lived, while others can't return because of medical problems, the International Organization for Migration study showed.
The quake razed 600,000 homes, 6,500 schools and 800 clinics and hospitals, many in very inaccessible areas. More than 6,000km of roads were also destroyed.
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