October 12, 2005

ISLAMABAD – In Pakistan, Church World Service reports that its emergency aid teams and other rescue groups are continuing to make inroads as many as 40,000 may have died and nearly five million are homeless following Saturday's South Asia earthquake.

"But this is going to be remembered as the earthquake that killed the children," Church World Service Pakistan-Afghanistan Director Marvin Parvez said today from Islamabad.

CWS will provide medical assistance to 100,000 people impacted by the quake – half in Azad Kashmir and half in the Northwest Frontier Province – through two health centers. From Pakistan, Parvez said the health centers are now being organized and will provide immunization and first aid.

Parvez said today "We received beautiful news of four children being rescued from a school," but with occasional good news about rescued survivors, reports from the scene have otherwise been extremely bleak.

"There are recovered bodies of children being set outside of schools, ready for burial," Parvez reported. "As a parent, this is very difficult to see."

He added: "It's a horror story that doesn't end. You find yet another village that has been flattened by this earthquake." Efforts to rescue survivors or retrieve bodies are being hampered by the inaccessibility of remote rural villages.

Parvez said there is "tremendous need right now for shelter for the earthquake survivors.. People have lost their homes and need shelter. People are very scared and they can't afford to lose any more loved ones."

"Our teams have been on the ground since day one," says Parvez. The agency has had operations in Pakistan for more than 25 years,

Church World Service Pakistan- chair of the Pak- Humanitarian Forum (PHF), a collaboration of international humanitarian and emergency response agencies in Pakistan- and other members of that group are going out in teams to assess damage and needs.

Parvez says, "Despite the fact that we are all responding as fast as we can, and that international aid is now coming in, survivors are in dire need. People are asking for clean drinking water, food, tents and medicines.

"Those now homeless or who are afraid to return to their houses are living in the open air and freezing temperatures," he said.

Church World Service's office and health clinic in Mansehra were damaged by the quake but the clinic is now cleared, open and serving survivors needing medical care. People are getting colds and fevers due to poor shelter conditions.

CWS Pakistan-Afghanistan offices in Karachi, Islamabad, Mansehra and Murree are organizing relief efforts, assessing needs and determining longer-term CWS response focus. Families who will be served now are those who have lost their houses from the earthquake, as well as women, children and vulnerable families who are without food and shelter and have taken refuge under the open sky.

Parvez said people are still being given first aid at open places and in the streets. Helicopters have been shifting injured people to hospitals in Murree, Abbottabad and other hospitals.

As international aid began to pour in today, aircraft loaded with supplies came from the United States, Britain, Japan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. India, Russia, China and Germany also offered assistance.

The U.S. responded today by sending three military cargo planes laden with emergency supplies and eight U.S. helicopters, diverted from Afghanistan, carrying supplies, tarpaulins and equipment including high-tech cameras for finding buried survivors, according to a CNN report.

CWS' Parvez said earthquake survivors are pleading for coffins and assistance to bury the dead bodies lying in the rubble.

"This has been the most severe earthquake in this area for 120 years," says Parvez. People are grief-stricken. There are towns that have been completely destroyed," he said. "Many children are still missing, as they were in school at the time of the incident."

CWS further reports that areas ahead of Balakot town and Gari Habib Ullah are not yet accessible. From Washington, Church World Service Emergency Response Program Director Donna J. Derr says that the capital of Azad Kashmir is devastated.

"In Abbottabad, a Girls High School of 1,100 students was destroyed," she said, and only a few students could be evacuated. At a primary school in Balakot only 25 of its 175 students could be saved. The grief here is enormous and demands particular care, now and in coming weeks," she said.

Parvez said, "The worst hit place was Bagh, 40 kilometers southeast of Muzaffarabad There are no survivors in villages like Jaglari, Kufalgarh, Harigal and Baniyali in Bagh district."

Pakistan has said it would accept assistance from long-time rival and neighbor India, and, in another sign of good will, the Associated Press news service reported that the largest rebel group in the disputed region of Kashmir ordered an end to violence in areas devastated by the quake.

From its U.S. headquarters, Church World Service has issued an initial national fundraising appeal for $7.9 million to support emergency phase relief in the region.

Church World Service