Pakistan: Time running out for earthquake children

Plan, a child centred development agency distributing emergency aid to northern Pakistan, is predicting a secondary - equally deadly - crisis for children who survived the South Asia earthquake, as time runs out for the village communities still waiting for rescue and relief.

Plan Australia national executive director Ian Wishart says that an estimated 20,000 children died in the earthquake and up to a million are homeless and destitute.

"Many of the surviving children are now exposed to renewed risks from the conditions they are forced to endure. Thousands could die as rain and snow, freezing night time temperatures, disease, and untreated injuries take their toll," Mr Wishart says.

Mr Wishart said Plan has been working in cooperation with the Pakistan Army and a group of local volunteer doctors to transport urgently needed tents, blankets, medical supplies and food to desperate villages about 70km from Mansehra where Plan has been working since 1997.

Plan is now receiving about 200 tents per day from a tent manufacture in Islamabad but thousands more tents are desperately needed for families whose homes were destroyed by the 8 October earthquake that has left more than 2.5 million homeless and claimed the lives of an estimated 54,000 people in northern Pakistan.

"We have had the use of two Pakistan Army helicopters to distribute supplies and tarpaulins and to airlift the injured, especially children. But thousands of children remain in the destroyed villages without medical treatment, shelter or adequate food. And while they escaped death in the initial destruction, they are now more vulnerable than ever. For over a week, many have had no shelter or warm clothes; very little fuel to keep them warm; insufficient food; and little or no medical attention," Mr Wishart said.

Plan Pakistan country director Mia Haglund Heelas said night-time is extremely cold and as winter sets in the temperatures will soon drop below freezing. "There are already reports of children shivering and huddled around small campfires as fuel supplies dwindle."

Mr Wishart said that Plan was racing against time to provide heavy duty tents, water, food, fuel and blankets to the children who survived, but who now have absolutely nothing.

Tim Cansfield-Smith
Plan Australia Media & Communications Manager
Phone: 03 9672 3656