More harsh weather is predicted for the mountains of northern Pakistan, complicating deliveries of building materials in areas where nearly 150 Mercy Corps aid workers continue to respond to the immense needs created by October's 7.6-magnitude earthquake.
Shelter remains the top priority. Before the snows began in earnest in early January, relief workers had taken advantage of unseasonably warm weather to distribute nearly 500 all-weather tents to areas below 5,300 feet in elevation, and disseminate 9- and 12-foot-long pieces of corrugated metal that can serve as roofing material for temporary dwellings. More than 5,000 sheets were delivered to families last week.
Mercy Corps teams are also working feverishly to ensure families living in large-scale tent camps have clean water and proper sanitation. In one such camp in Kastra, Mercy Corps built latrines and a bathroom, piped water to six new taps and engineered a tank system to hold 8,000 gallons of water.
The cold weather is also exacerbating health conditions. Weather-related fatalities have been reported, and exposure-related illnesses such as pneumonia are on the rise. Mercy Corps continues to treat thousands of people a week in tented health facilities and through outreach teams.
Wintertime shelters are desperately needed to avert a feared "second wave of deaths" in the mountainous regions rocked by a quake that has already claimed a confirmed 87,000 lives. The UN says it has received $240.7 million in quake relief, with an additional $19 million in pledges - only 47 percent of the $550 million it said it needed to get survivors through to the April thaw.
Your generous donation is critical to help Mercy Corps' provide immediate, lifesaving relief for vulnerable Pakistani families in need.
Here's what we're doing to help survivors:
- Shelter: Mercy Corps is supplying tents and cold-weather shelters for thousands of people bracing for the harsh Himalayan winter. This includes a Cash-for-Work program that is employing more than 4,600 people salvaging materials such as lumber and corrugated roofing to use in constructing 6,000 shelters, more than three-quarters of which are underway. Survival kits which include thermal blankets and stoves are being distributed.
- Medical care: Six tented health facilities continue to treat quake-related injuries and medical conditions such as respiratory tract infections, intestinal problems and skin rashes. Most are related to exposure or poor sanitation. Poor weather closed one of the facilities and limited last week's patient visits to less than a third of the usual 5,000. Three medical units are transferring to prefabricated structures to better withstand the winter weather. Mercy Corps has sent doctors on three-night visits to high-altitude towns in the Siran Valley, where they treat several hundred patients unable to travel to one of the tented clinics. Two thousand health and hygiene kits are also being distributed.
- Emergency items: Although daily distributions recently have included shelter items exclusively, our teams have distributed more than 3,400 tents, 2,200 stoves,and nearly 7,500 lightweight insulating blankets. Eighteen tons of food have been distributed since the earthquake struck.
- Clean water and sanitation: Mercy Corps has built 355 latrines and repaired water systems in 16 villages in Siran and Konsh Valleys. In addition, the agency has launched an urban water and sanitation program for 30,000 people living in tented camps in Muzaffarabad, a city in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
- Schools: In Hillkot, a January 13 celebration of Eid, a Muslim holiday, drew 200 children and 100 adults who reveled in prayers, songs, skits, games and poems. Aid workers are stocking schools there with supplies after furnishing two tented schools in Freedabad Village with mats, thermal blankets, psychosocial materials and school supplies. In all, Mercy Corps has helped 720 children return to school. Earlier, Mercy Corps distributed book bags, text books, coloring books, crayons, and other school supplies to four schools (two primary and two secondary schools) in the hard-hit town of Battal, where classes are being convened in large winterized tents provided by the Pakistani government.
The earthquake was the largest in decades to hit the disputed Himalayan region administered by both Pakistan and India. More than 1,500 seismic aftershocks - including a 5.2 shimmy on December 28 - bad weather and rough terrain continue to complicate relief efforts across the affected region.
Mercy Corps has a long-term commitment to Pakistan. The agency has worked in Pakistan since 1985, and had 121 staff in the country prior to the earthquake. Its existing humanitarian operations in Baluchistan and Sindh Provinces continue. Once emergency earthquake needs are met, Mercy Corps hopes to shift from relief to longer-term recovery efforts in the northern region of Pakistan.
Your donation will make possible both Mercy Corps' immediate response to health, education and shelter concerns and its work towards Pakistan's future recovery.