Geneva, October 17, 2005—Church World Service-Pakistan/Afghanistan (CWS-P/A), a member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, is trying to expand its relief efforts to reach survivors of the October 8 earthquake but is being hampered by adverse weather and security conditions.

CWS (P/A)-ACT truckloads of material continue to arrive in Mansehra on a daily basis, but weather conditions continued to hamper relief efforts for a second day on Saturday. A delegation made up of staff from CWS (P/A) and ACT member Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) was able to carry out a needs assessment for emergency water and sanitation at Ayub Medical Hospital-Abbotabad on Saturday morning. Bad weather forced the team to abandon its assessment visits to Battagram and Balakot, but the team was expected to leave Sunday morning if weather conditions were favorable.

On October 13, CWS (P/A)-ACT began to air drop shelter kits from army helicopters to some of the most affected and difficult to reach areas in Battagram, including 365 kits in Allai village. Using army helicopters has allowed CWS (P/A)-ACT to carry out rapid distributions not only in inaccessible areas but has also prevented goods from being looted.

Because of the deteriorating security situation, CWS (P/A)-ACT was not able to resume the air delivery of shelter kits the following morning (Friday, October 14), and heavy rains and hail storms prevented the air delivery of shelter kits on Saturday.

The Pakistan meteorological office was forecasting more thunderstorms and hail in the coming days, which could further delay relief efforts and put survivors at greater risk.

CWS (P/A) reported that the army has been extremely cooperative so far in the air-drop operation, and that currently the needs-assessment team is negotiating the delivery of more shelter kits to hard-to-reach areas. CWS (P/A) said the army was very pleased to see the swift response of CWS (P/A)-ACT and that the brigadier in charge there said that CWS (P/A)-ACT has brought in the largest consignment of shelter kits so far. However, CWS (P/A)-ACT also reported problems in obtaining enough shelter kits and trucks for transportation to meet the high demand.

To meet some of the demand, NCA-ACT was asked to supply winterized family tents as well as warm quilted blankets. A flight with the first 40 to 45 metric tons of tents was expected to leave Oslo on Sunday, and the remainder of the 85-metric-ton shipment will arrive in Pakistan this week.

Over the weekend, Pakistan’s government announced the latest death toll with a figure that had been revised sharply upward. In addition to rain and hail, snow has begun to fall in some parts of Kashmir. The arrival of harsher winter conditions makes reaching the earthquake survivors all the more crucial. With as many as 2.5 million people homeless, reports from the affected areas say that survivors’ most critical needs are not food and clothing, but shelter and medical assistance, since many hospitals were destroyed in the earthquake as well.

Pakistan’s disaster-response chief said on Thursday that the authorities would not be able to provide shelter before the winter to many of the homeless survivors. Stressing a shortage of blankets and tents, Major General Farooq Javed told a news conference in Islamabad, "It is not possible to provide shelter to all the affected people before the winter approaches." He said there were dire shortages of blankets and tents, but plans were underway to import two million blankets and 100,000 large tents.