The Kashmir earthquake: Failures on the road to disaster

[PaulaFarrell]

Published: 10 November 2005
The Kashmir earthquake: Failures on the road to disaster The Kashmir earthquake: Failures on the road to disaster

Time is running out for Yassir Batt. A month on from the Kashmir earthquake, he still has no shelter to sleep under. When night falls, he and his brothers huddle together around a fire beside the ruins of their home in the mountains above Muzaffarabad.

In a week or two, the snow will arrive here. Higher up the valley, the locals predict that the next time it rains, it will be as snow. Yassir is 13 years old. If he does not have any shelter when the snow comes, he will die.

Below in the city of Muzaffarabad, people are living crammed together, five families to a single tent. There just aren't enough tents to go around and not enough room in them. Some of the men have to sleep outside. The ground is covered with human faeces and open sewers run through the refugee camps. There has been a serious diarrhoea epidemic and, although aid workers will only whisper it, there are growing fears of a cholera outbreak.

These are the people the international community has failed. With winter looming, the relief effort remains desperately underfunded. Within weeks, the "second massive wave of death" warned of by UN secretary general Kofi Annan may begin.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article326039.ece