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Death toll in South Asia quake at 87,350
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-08 15:08
One month after South Asia's massive Oct. 8 earthquake, the regional death
toll jumped to 87,350 Tuesday following a new count of Pakistan's casualties,
officials said.
Pakistan's official toll rose by 13,000 — from 73,000 to 86,000 — following a
broad assessment headed by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, working
with local provincial governments and aid agencies, senior Pakistani Finance
ministry official Iqbal Ahmed Khan said Tuesday.
India has reported 1,350 deaths in its portion of Kashmir.
Khan said the new Pakistani toll came as result of more bodies being
recovered from the rubble in the quake zone and after assessment teams reached
areas that previously were inaccessible due to landslides unleashed by the
quake.
"This is feedback from the field," Khan said. "There is a likelihood that
(the toll) may increase."
The U.N. stepped up its appeals for more money to help victims centered in
Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, urging donors to be as generous as with other
recent disasters and saying it urgently needs $42.4 million to keep bringing
help through November.
"What is particularly difficult in Kashmir is that people (will) freeze to
death if they don't get assistance in weeks," U.N. humanitarian chief Jan
Egeland said in New York. "It's even more urgent than it was in these other
hurricanes or tsunamis."
Egeland urged everyone from individuals to oil-rich nations to contribute.
The U.N. planned to hold a news conference later Tuesday to detail how it
must cut back its operations unless it gets more funding.
But Egeland said in New York that the U.N. has launched "Operation Winter
Race" to bring shelter to about 200,000 people living at high altitudes above
the snow line in the rugged Himalayans and about 150,000 expected to come down
to tent camps at lower elevations.
"The concept is one warm room per family before it becomes too cold," he
said.
Egeland said he was encouraged that 334,000 tents have been delivered and
that 332,000 more are in the pipeline, "and that should be enough" if all arrive
and are distributed. But he issued an urgent appeal for stoves to help keep
people warm.
The quake also destroyed the homes of more than 3 million people, many of
whom have moved into the many tent camps that have been set up in foothills of
the Himalayas in northern Pakistan.
But the camps pose dangers as well because most still lack adequate clean
water and sanitation, aid workers say.
"Unless conditions are improved in these camps, diseases like cholera could
spread like wildfire," said quake relief head Jane Cockin of the British charity
Oxfam. "If disease does break out in the camps, the number of deaths could far
exceed those in danger in their villages."
Acute diarrhea, tetanus and measles have already killed dozens of people
since the quake. The winter could bring hypothermia, pneumonia and other
respiratory illnesses.
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