Quake's Homeless Battle Winter

The New York Times

February 2, 2006

By CARLOTTA GALL

QAZIABAD, Kashmir, Jan. 26 — Three months after the devastating earthquake leveled every house in this mountain village in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the newlyweds Zaheer and Shazia found themselves sleeping once more in the open, this time in the snow. Their cotton tent had collapsed on top of them in the night under a heavy snowfall, so for four nights, they huddled in the open on a rope bed by a fire.

"It was very cold, the snow fell on our faces," said Shazia, 19, with a shy smile. "We need a shelter, food rations and bedding."

Despite an enormous aid effort over the three months since the Oct. 8 earthquake, rescue workers are still finding new villages in need of the most basic assistance to hope to survive the harsh winter snows. Two heavy snowfalls in the last month have hampered the relief operation and tested the population of this mountainous area, still traumatized by the quake, which killed 73,338 people, seriously injured 69,000 and left an estimated 2.5 million homeless.

"We are very worried and are being very vigilant," said Jan Vandemoortele, coordinator chief of the United Nations mission in Pakistan, which is working with the Pakistani government in the relief effort. A long spell of very cold weather could imperil many lives, he said.

"We are aware that the weather could blow us off in a day," he said. "We cannot let our heads rest until the spring."

Only a tiny proportion of the homeless moved to unaffected cities to rent accommodations or stay with relatives. Nearly 2 million are living in tents in the valleys and can expect two more months of freezing temperatures, Mr. Vandemoortele said, while some 400,000 people remain above the snowline, cut off by snow and landslides and surviving on airlifts of food and other supplies.

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