Bad weather has claimed the lives of at least two earthquake survivors, the first confirmed victims of what officials fear will be a new disaster for the 3.5 million Pakistanis who lost their homes last month. With heavy rain and snow lashing Pakistan's part of divided Kashmir, more than 100 people were brought to hospitals with hypothermia and respiratory diseases on Monday. The bad weather blocked roads and grounded helicopters as troops raced against the approaching Himalayan winter to ferry aid to remote areas devastated by the 8 October earthquake that killed more than 87,000 people.
Three-month-old Waqar Mukhtar died of pneumonia hours after he was brought in from nearby Neelum Valley, said Abdul Hamid, a doctor at a hospital in the regional capital, Muzaffarabad. In the town of Bagh, a middle-aged man died a day after he was brought in with hypothermia, said Lieutenant-Colonel Johan De Graaf, senior medical officer at the Nato field hospital there. "If we don't get people into shelters, they will die. It's as simple as that," said Air Commodore Andrew Walton, commander of the Nato disaster response team in Pakistan. "That's the second disaster that's waiting to happen if we in the international community don't do something about it." Walton said it was critical to get more shelter materials and mobile medical teams quickly to high-altitude areas. Mountaintops in the area have a fresh covering of snow. |