UN to build makeshift homes for quake victims
Bureau Report

MUZAFFARABAD—The three million quake-smashed families in country’s cold northern mountains are being taught to build shelter from the rubble of their homes under a new United Nations programme launched here yesterday.
Survivors will receive tool kits, iron sheeting for roofs and technical details on how to build makeshift homes to protect them from the coming winter, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said.
“People need shelter now. It’s important to promote local solutions so that temporary homes are affordable, generate jobs, and are accepted by the community,” UNDP country director Haoliang Xu told inp.
The scheme is a way of overcoming the chronic lack of winterized tents and adequate shelter for the estimated three million people left homeless by the Oct 8 quake. More than 88,000 people died in the quake.
International and local architects had come up with easy-to-build designs featuring salvaged materials like wooden beams and locally available items such as sandbags to make warm, aftershock-resistant walls, the UNDP said.
Xu said the scheme would also boost the construction industry in the devastated region, where the economic output has slowed almost to a halt since the quake.
Around 150 local engineers and more than one thousand building workers who are receiving training under the initiative will help survivors build their homes. But there is a dire need of more money to reach all the families it wants to in badly-hit, high-altitude areas in the districts of Muzaffarabad, Bagh, Mansehra, Shangla and Neelum. Each home will cost around 400 dollars to build and although there has been “generous” funding from Germany, New Zealand, the UN Foundation and UNDP, it only had $ 6 million of the 15 million needed for the scheme.
APP adds: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched an initiative this week to help 30,000 families in high altitude earthquake-devastated areas to build locally designed winterized shelters from the rubble of their homes and locally available materials, it was announced Monday.
For its part, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has deployed teams to fix water- and sanitation-related problems in makeshift camps that have sprung up across hard-hit areas following an outbreak of diarrhoea among victims of the quake, which killed at least 73,000 people, injured almost as many others and left 3 million more homeless.
In organized camps, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners have already set up water points, latrines and bathrooms while other UN agencies are contributing to the relief effort in their areas of expertise.
A US military Rapid Refueling Point at Muzaffarabad Airport opened Tuesday allowing relief helicopters to refuel quicker and provide earthquake aid further north in support of Pakistani-led relief efforts.
The RRP, part of the U.S. military’s Forward Re-supply Base in Muzaffarabad, saves each aircraft 75 minutes operating time at each refueling due to its location and capability to refuel helicopters while they are still running without having to shut them down as in Islamabad.