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Pakistani
families start a day at a makeshift tent camp in Muzaffarabad.
(Reuters)
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The
aid agency stated that world governments reacted so slow in helping
the quake-stricken people.
"Governments
have been much slower to release funding than after the tsunami,
despite the fact that there are over 50 percent more people displaced
and we are in a race against the weather," said Ken Caldwell,
Save the Children's Director of International Operations.
The
deadly Indian Ocean tsunami in December left two million people
homeless and within a month, 775 million dollars had been pledged to a
UN appeal.
The
charity, which is spending four million pounds ($ seven million) in
the quake-stricken region, warned the sum will run out in one-month
period in its struggle to help vulnerable children and families before
the snowfall.
"Every
day it is getting colder and colder, and people will not survive long
in the open or in makeshift shelters," Caldwell said.
"We
urgently need additional funds now to enable us to reach these
families before it is too late."
The
quake has wrecked havoc on Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, with most
houses, government buildings and shops totally collapsing.
Once
a pretty riverside city of around 100,000, the quake left the province
capital, Muzaffarabad, barely recognizable, turning it to a virtual
city of death.
World
Indictment
The
inadequate aid efforts to the quake-hit people were also blasted by
British-born Muslim singer Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens,
saying more should have been done to help the affected people.
"This
is one of the most difficult and inhospitable areas to work in, it's
so inaccessible," said Islam, according to ContactMusic Web site.
"There
should have been more of a response in regards to the need for
helicopters and other transport systems to deliver the aid, but nobody
was ready for it.
Islam
said the poor international aid to the quake-stricken people were an
indictment of most world nations.
"Why
isn't there more of a ready, rapid, response force which governments
can take part in to help," he charged.
"These
calamities are not going away. There seem to be more and more of them
each day."
Local
and international agencies are struggling to cope with the scale of
the devastation caused by the quake, biggest disaster in Pakistan's
history, in a mountainous and already impoverished region on the edge
of the Himalayas.
Relief
workers in the quake-hit areas have been facing a logistical nightmare
with countless high-country settlements cut off by landslides that
blocked or swept away roads, and money to keep a fleet of relief
helicopters in the air fast running out, Reuters said.
Every
day the weather gets colder, with rain and snow forecast in areas over
2,000 meters (7,000 feet) in coming days.
"I've
never seen a situation where so much has to be done in such a short
time," said Pat Duggan, head of the U.N. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Muzaffarabad, the ruined
capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
"It's
going to be a very big ask for everybody – the Pakistani government
and the international community. All we can do is go for it," she
said.
