By Robert Birsel
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, Jan 3 (Reuters)
- Relief flights were grounded for a third-straight day in northern Pakistan's earthquake zone on Tuesday and aid workers scrambled to help cold, wet survivors after two days of heavy snow and rain.
Despite the bad weather, health agencies said they had seen no spike in numbers of sick people since the snow and rain started on Saturday night, nor any deaths related to the cold.
"There's been nothing over the last two days in terms of new patients coming in," International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Jessica Barry said of the group's main field hospital in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
ICRC clinics had also seen no great rush, she said.
"There's been no leap, the signs are looking good," she said.
More than two million people have been living in tents or crude shelters patched together from their ruined homes since the Oct. 8 quake killed more than 73,000 people.
The World Health Organisation also said it had not seen any surge in the numbers sick people, despite more than a foot of snow that fell across the mountains and days of drenching, icy rain in the valleys after an unusually dry December.
The weight of the snow brought tents crashing down in the mountains and the rain triggered fresh landslides that have again blocked roads into remote valleys.
By mid-morning on Tuesday, a hazy sun was breaking through the fog over Muzaffarabad. The army was clearing the landslides, but the Neelum Valley to the north was again expected to be cut off.
SHELTERS FLOODED
In so-called spontaneous camps that sprung up across the region many shelters were flooded, adding to the misery.
"We didn't get any help for the last few days, we've just had problems with the mud and water," said Zarina Bibi, standing holding a baby outside her drenched tent in a Muzaffarabad camp.
"If the army hadn't drained the area we would have drowned."
U.N. and other aid workers have been touring the camps handing out plastic sheets, while the World food Programme distributed high-energy biscuits for people unable to cook outside because of the rain.
"The people who had been complacent about the instructions we've been giving them to make (drainage) channels and everything else did get washed out and we had some very bad problems," said Morgan Morris of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
"We spent a lot of time going around all the camps checking them out and gearing up the population to start clearing channels and the response was quite good," Morris said.
The situation in camps organised by the government and the United Nations was much better, she said.
Earlier in the relief operation, aid workers had expressed fears that the winter could herald a second wave of deaths. But clear skies in December meant Tuesday was only the fourth day that vital helicopter relief operations had to be suspended.
The good weather allowed aid groups to position shelter materials, bedding, food and medical supplies high up in the mountains, where people should have enough to sustain them for weeks, even if they are now cut off by snow.
There had been fears that the onset of the cold, wet weather would trigger an exodus of people from the mountains into congested camps in the valleys, but there has been no sign of this yet. (Additional reporting by Suzanna Koster)