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Church World Service Teams Helping Hundreds More Families in Remote, Underserved Pakistan Quake Areas

January 7, 2006

Aid Workers Scrambling After Snow, Mudslides, Flooding

ISLAMABAD – Relief helicopters are in the air again in northern Pakistan, following heavy rain and snow that worsened conditions for Pakistan earthquake survivors. Global humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) says its aid workers in the region remain deeply concerned about the welfare of families who chose to stay in difficult to access areas.

From Islamabad, Church World Service Pakistan/Afghanistan Country Director Marvin Parvez says the agency's teams recently identified about 200 families in Dhulla Maira and Dharmang villages, in union council Dhudyal, Tehsil and Mansehra District, who had received only minimal assistance to date. CWS distributed tents, sheets, and shawls to these families.

From its international headquarters in New York, Church World Service CEO and Executive Director Rev. John L. McCullough said, "We are concerned that many will yet die of exposure, especially those who've remained in their villages and have still received little by way of shelter materials or other aid. The haste to avert further deaths is still of the first order."

Church World Service has had relief and development operations in Pakistan for more than 50 years and was one of the first agencies to begin distributing relief assistance after the earthquake.

Responding to flooding in some camps, Church World Service teams and its partners, along with UN agencies and other NGOs, are now working to move families out of damaged tents and into drier accommodations.

CWS Concurrently Begins Rebuilding Phase, But Finds Survivors Still Worried About Winter Survival, Shelter

While still dealing with desperate emergency and survival needs in the face of deepening winter and blizzards, Church World Service is nonetheless concurrently mounting reconstruction plans for affected and homeless survivors.

But in a recent meeting with male residents of the Shohal Najaf tent village to assess those survivors' initial recovery and reconstruction plans, CWS Pakistan/Afghanistan found people more immediately concerned with fears about their emergency tents not being able to withstand heavy snow and rain in coming weeks.

They're also asking about access to the tin sheeting being provided elsewhere to those not now residing in tent camps. Parvez noted that tents Church World Service has distributed, as well as the tent city it is maintaining near Balakot, Shohal Najaf, are winterized. But he says there is a shortage of the corrugated iron sheets being used for building and immediate winter shelter, and that thousands are still living in summer-weight tents in the snow and wet, "with heavier snow yet to come."

Major reconstruction efforts in devastated northern Pakistan are not expected to begin till post-winter, April 2006.

Parvez said that UNHCR has began distributing more blankets and plastic sheeting in the northern frontier, and said reports indicate that the World Food Program (WFP) has covered an estimated 65% of the population targeted to be served (90,787).

Parvez–who earlier urged fellow responder NGOs to give fire safety instruction to tent inhabitants following several tent fires that caused the deaths of at least two children–says Church World Service is relieved that at a December 26 United Nations Camp Management cluster meeting, a one-page handout on fire safety and winterization, translated into Urdu, was issued and is now being distributed to survivors in both planned tent villages and spontaneous tent shelters.

Continued distress etching away at survivors' emotional resilience

"We are all relieved so far that widespread disease has been kept at bay here," says Parvez, "but we are deeply troubled by the relentless emotional pain we see around us, in children, adults, older people, those who've lost so many loved ones. The continued struggles," he said, "are wearing down even the most resilient."

Over the holidays, an eight-woman team joined the shared Church World Service-Norwegian Church Aid operation at the CWS office in Mansehra, to enhance the group's existing psychosocial program.

Church World Service and partner teams report that more than 219,000 houses were destroyed through the impacted area, and up to 90% of buildings collapsed from the quake. At least 9,000 quake victims are still missing.

CWS disaster preparedness trainings for Pakistan schoolteachers, conducted just days before the quake, is credited by participants who survived as helping them save children and fellow teachers during the quake.

Church World Service is continuing its U.S. fundraising campaign to aid ongoing emergency relief and long-term recovery for northern Pakistan.

Contributions to support earthquake survivors can be sent to:
Church World Service, Southern Asia Earthquake--#6979, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515. Contributions can also be made online, or by calling 800.297.1516, ext. 222.

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;

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