Deadly pneumonia spreads amongst quake children
Bureau Report

MUZAFFARABAD—Pneumonia is spreading amongst cold and hungry children who survived Pakistan’s giant earthquake, killing two and affecting hundreds more as the Himalayan winter sweeps in. The United Nations begged the international community for extra help as it races against time to save millions of people threatened by disease and hypothermia because of the sudden change in the weather.
Some snow fell in mountain villages overnight and temperatures fell below freezing throughout the disaster zone, threatening to bring about a second wave of deaths that aid agencies have long warned of. “Pneumonia has spread among children, according to data received from different places,” Sardar Mahmood Khan, district health officer in Muzaffarabad, the ruined capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, told reporters. “We are receiving hundreds of cases in different areas.” The October 8 quake killed more than 74,000 people in Pakistan and India but the biggest fears have been for the 3.5 million survivors left homeless by the disaster. The United Nations said late Monday that two children — a three-month-old boy and a young girl — had died of suspected pneumonia after the first snowfall of the winter in northern Pakistan and Kashmir at the weekend. “We need ongoing and additional support in the next few days so we could reach as many of the remaining vulnerable people as possible,” Andrew MacLeod, the UN emergency operations chief in Pakistan, said in a statement. He said that most of the 5.8 billion dollars pledged by donors at a conference on November 19 was for long-term rebuilding, while a 550-million-dollar UN appeal for immediate aid remains less than half-funded. “Winter and nature are reminding us: ‘Concentrate on relief in order to save lives, reconstruct later,’” MacLeod said.
The young girl died from suspected pneumonia on Monday as her father carried her from the remote village of Kumi in northwestern Pakistan to the destroyed town of Balakot 20 kilometres (12 miles) away, MacLeod said. The three-month-old boy died of pneumonia on the same day after he was brought to a hospital in Muzaffarabad from the nearby Neelum Valley, MacLeod added. The UN said snow and rain had also “severely hampered” its helicopter and truck relief operations.