      |
Letter from the field: Catherine Deacon – the Road’s End in Kashmir Melbourne doctor, Catherine Deacon is in Indian-administered Kashmir working with the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) earthquake response. Here she writes about the current humanitarian situation close to the ‘line of control’ on 5th November, 2005. MSF is working in two areas close to the 'line of control' in Indian controlled Kashmir, Thandar and Uri. Currently I'm working with a logistician and some enthusiastic local volunteers, many of whom have had their own houses damaged. We are going into the villages doing assessments and then distributing items such as tarpaulin, corrugated iron sheets, blankets and other items. Last week my team camped out up in the mountains in a village called Kamelcot while we did assessments of villages up to three hours walk from the road’s end. It gave us a real appreciation of the conditions here. Even with a down sleeping bag and a tent it was cold. The snow can be six metres deep in some of these areas in the middle of winter. In this area I saw only one house that was still standing, and that was badly damaged. In this village which has about 350 households, about 80 people had died. Almost every family reported having lost a family member, mainly children. One man pointed to a land slide at the side of the village - he said there were still six people buried underneath that they hadn't been able to find. People have now recovered from their initial shock and have started to build using material salvaged from the rubble, but the huts they have made are crowded, draughty and poorly insulated. Giving people materials to help them improve their shelter has been our main priority. The severely injured were evacuated early on by the military and so far we have not seen much in the way of health needs, although this may change as the weather worsens. This coming week we plan to camp out again, so as to be able to access some even more remote villages. We are seeing more and more aid coming into the area, but often the assistance stops at the end of the road and is not always fairly distributed. In some areas the gullies are full of second hand clothes. In a few weeks many of these areas will become inaccessible. We hope to reach as many remote villages as possible before the snows come. MSF is working on both sides of the Pakistani and Indian sides of the ‘line of control’ in Kashmir. Since the earthquake struck on 8th October MSF has sent 140 international and over 200 national staff to regions affected in Kashmir and North West Frontier Province (Pakistan), providing emergency medical care and supplies including blankets, winterized tents, cooking kits and hygiene kits. » Read more articles on the Asian Earthquake
|
|
|
|||
|
|||||
