Quake aid: Now or never, UN urges World
Cash strapped UN to ground choppers, cut food aid
By Zulfiqar Ahmad

ISLAMABAD—The United Nations expressing despair over the slow pace of international response to help the quake victims Friday said time was running out for millions of survivors, now forced to sleep in bitter cold in the Himalayas.
“It is now or never. There will be no second chance...tomorrow will be too late,” UN Resident Coordinator Jan Vandemoortele told reporters here at a briefing.
The international community on Wednesday pledged almost 580 million US dollars for assistance to Pakistan after the devastating earthquake of Oct 8, which killed over 54,000, injured 77,000 and rendered around 3 million homeless.
The UN has already warned that the death toll of about 54,000 could double if aid was not immediately available to the thousands scattered in the mountainous areas.
“The pledges are not yet commitment, we need the money now, if not we will be forced to scale down our operations,” Vandemoortele warned only after 17 days of operation in over 28,000 sq km of affected area.
He said the UN was fully operational and was already providing medical aid, food and shelter to the quake-affected people, but regretted that only 20 per cent — US 100 million dollars of the pledges have so far materialised.
“We need up to 250 million US dollars by next month, otherwise we will fail in our obligation to save the people from death, disease and hunger,” he added.
According to United Nations estimates tens of thousands injured have not yet been treated and could prove fatal, if medical aid does not reach them within days.
The UN had raised by 67 per cent its original flash appeal of Oct 11 to US 550 US million dollars, to meet the food, medical and shelter requirements of over 2 million people for next six months.
According to UN the increase took into account the logistical nightmare confronting the relief workers, since most of the areas were still inaccessible by road and air support was necessary to move aid to the people in next 3-4 weeks before the winters set in.
“The scale, difficulty and complexity of the operation is horrendous,” he said and said the UN was operating only through its reserve stocks or even by borrowing.
He was appreciative of the role of Pakistan Army and said it was doing a “commendable job” in helping the affected people. The UN, he said was supplementing the effort and added that no government in the world can handle the disaster of this scale alone. The reporters were also briefed by the heads of different clusters of UN dealing with shelter, logistics and the UN Deputy Resident Coordinator Rashid Khalikov about the operations.
On logistics, the media was informed that two parallel operations, through its fleet of helicopters and trucks was reaching the inaccessible areas. To a question Vandemoortele said addition of more helicopters was not the answer as only a limited number could fly in the valley at any given time to ensure safety.
About the opening of LoC, he said, “it will not solve the logistic nightmare. Mountains will not become plateaus and there are huge logistic problems in the area”. He said though the immediate signs of malnutrition were not there, but these would be evident in next 2-3 months.
He said there was an urgent need to supply wheat, which was a staple diet, to the affected areas, besides CGI sheets, construction material, plastic sheets, so that those who choose to stay, can survive the winters. To a question why the international community had been slow to respond, he said “it is a puzzle, probably no nationals of the donors were affected, there have been many natural calamities and the resources are dried up”.
He however stressed on having a strategy to help the people rebuild at the earliest.
Agencies add: The world has one last chance to give cash for Pakistan's quake victims or else the United Nations will have to stop its vital helicopter flights and scale down food deliveries, aid officials said. "We need the cash to keep the helicopters flying," UN humanitarian coordinator for Pakistan Jan Vandemoortele told a news conference in Islamabad on Friday. "It is now or never, we will not have a second chance”.
Vandemoortele was referring to six UN choppers which form part of an international fleet of around 60 helicopters taking part in the mission to save survivors of the devastating October 8 earthquake. Pakistan itself, the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain and other countries are funding their own costly helicopter operations separately from the UN. "We can keep the helicopters flying for one week," World Food Programme (WFP) emergency coordinator Michael Jones told the same news conference, again referring to the UN choppers.
The UN's helicopter air bridge was an absolute priority with only around three weeks until winter snows completely cut off mountainous quake-hit villagers, Jones said. "If we don't keep it running people will die," he added. Choppers have been the backbone of efforts to get tents, blankets and food to around three million people left homeless by the earthquake. More than 54,000 people were killed and 77,000 injured in the disaster.
The UN said Thursday that key emergency aid operations for Pakistani earthquake survivors were still vastly underfunded, a day after donor nations promised about half a billion dollars more in overall assistance.
Many of the pledges are for long-term reconstruction, while the UN says the cash is needed to save thousands of people from cold, hunger and disease in the next six months.
"We need the money now, if not we will be forced to scale down some of our operations, including food delivery. So far we have been operating on reserves and we have been borrowing from wherever we could from existing funds and projects," Vandemoortele said.