Quake victims airlifting banned to other cities, abroad
Staff Report

ISLAMABAD—Federal Relief Commissioner Maj Gen Farooq Ahmed Khan has said that government besides imposing a ban on shifting and airlifting of October 8 earthquake injured to the hospitals in other cities and abroad has made obligatory the registration of all such patients.
Addressing the daily press briefing on Saturday at prime minister secretariat, he said NGOs, relief organisations and philanthropists are helping people in quake affected areas but what we need more at this juncture is to improve coordination in relief operations. They must contact us at 0800-00023 for better coordination with Army. He also urged upon NGOs and philanthropists not to shift patients before proper registration because these people if not registered with NADRA will face problems after they get well and it will be difficult to reunite them with their heirs. He revealed that 53000 people have been confirmed dead while 74,500 injured in the earthquake affected areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and NWFP. At present, he said our prime objective is to provide shelter and food to affected areas before the onset of winter. In three to four weeks severe weather conditions could hit the earthquake affected areas, we need to take speedy action and international community must speed up its promised goods. The aftershocks have affected already affected areas but with the hectic efforts we have opened fifty percent roads leading towards the affected regions of NWFP and Azad Kashmir.
Relief goods have been provided to far flung areas. We have succefully cleared 45 kilometers roads leading to Kaghan valley and work on remaining roads is underway. So far, he said 44000 tents, 3,29,000 blankets, 7100 metric tonnes food items, 412 metric tonnes medicines and 2000 tonnes miscellaneous items have been dispatched to affected areas. This aide, he said does not include the relief goods being dispatched by provinces, NGOs and private donors. Responding to a query, he said Pakistan’s chopper fleet of 38 to 45 helicopters is taking part in the relief activities while 24 allied states helicopters have also joined the relief operation. “Whereas few helicopters always remain on ground due to technical problems so we can say that 60 helicopters are participating in the relief operations and they are having sorties round the clock,” he underscored.
But we need more helicopters from the international community because in most areas we cannot provide relief goods to blocked areas through roads and we need more air power to supply relief to affected areas, he added. The US, he said has also promised to send heavy helicopter battalion to Pakistan and other states have also promised to send more helicopters. We want that people in the affected areas should be provided shelter in three to four weeks before the onset of winter, so we are short of time and we have more work load.
Tentage villages have been set up in different areas close to the affected areas. But we have some problem because people in these affected areas do not live in congested populace but in shape of small hamlets of 8 to 10 houses and we are having problem in reaching them. But the road situation is improving and probably we will have access to these areas soon, he reaffirmed.
UNHCR, NGOs and Army have set up several tentage villages in the affected areas and more villages will be set up to boost the relief operations. He also refuted some rumours that Army has not liquefied its assets for relief operation saying it was Army which provided tents and food to the affected areas at the earliest. Army, he said has no tents left in its stores. We even drained our food stocks to affectees so Army did it as the first step.
Responding to a question, he said we are thankful to NATO for sending relief goods from its bases in its allied states. They will send 1000 tents soon they have promised us, he added. On another question Maj Gen Farooq said we have not yet received formal notification from NATO about 1000 soldiers being send to Pakistan. But if they are planning to do so then we will appreciate and welcome it. But I want to make it clear that these soldiers might be engineers and medics and will not for the labour work.
On another question, he said epidemics could spread in areas struck by wide scale devastations. But so far no such report have been reported to us. So far we have not heard about the massive outbreak of diseases in the affected areas. There had been reports of some cases of gastroenteritis in some children in affected areas but it happen because they might have drunk polluted water as most water resources of these areas have been badly hit. We have already taken water samples from 164 areas and cleared water of 50 to 60 areas while others have been asked to used precautionary measures before consuming water.