Pakistanis brace for harsh winter

By Mark Dummett
BBC News, Pakistan

Balakot's children are deprived of many basic necessities

The pupils and teachers of Garlat Government Primary School in Balakot are getting ready for more bad weather.

Boys as young as eight help put up large white tents, and break chunks of rubble to level the floor.

They are building the temporary classrooms on the wreckage of the old ones, and it is getting too cold to hold lessons in the open.

An icy wind blows from higher ground up the valley.

It snowed there a month earlier than usual, while in Balakot itself, it has rained heavily.

"We are putting up the tents ourselves because we don't have any workers and we have no money," deputy headmaster Mohammed Sabir explains.

"Children have no sweaters. They have no boots, and no shoes. We are in fear of the winter season."

No reconstruction

In fact most people in Balakot, the town in the mountains of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province which was flattened by last year's earthquake, are worried by the onset of winter.

Some locals are ignoring the law and rebuilding their homes

It threatens to be a miserable few months.

The government has not allowed reconstruction since it fears another quake could strike at anytime, so people live in tents or simple wood and metal-sheet shelters provided by relief agencies.

The site of a new town has been earmarked on a hillside some 20 kilometres away but not all the land has been acquired yet and building work has not started.

In the meantime, people complain that their temporary homes do not offer much protection.

"In the winter when it rains on the outside, it rains on the inside. You can't stop the rain coming in," Sain Mir Abdullah said.

He has decided to ignore the rules and build a new house anyway.

"It is God's will. We don't know if there will be another earthquake, but if we get stuck with that way of thinking, we will be in these shelters for a whole year."

His neighbour Attia shares a tent with her uncle, aunt and cousins.

It is pitched on the ruins of their old house which buried her parents and brother.

Landslides restrict the movement of people from higher villages

"When there was rain we would stay inside our house and the rain would make no difference, but now we have this tent made of cloth, and every time it rains it becomes wet.

"We can't light a fire in the tent in case it catches fire. So we stay warm by wrapping up in blankets," she said.

Blocked roads

An hour's drive from Balokot towards the snow line reveals another problem brought by the bad weather.

The heavy rains have washed away mountain sides already weakened by the earthquake and years of deforestation.

A 100-metre stretch of road is blocked by mud and rocks, and a single Pakistani army digger is working slowly to clear it.

This is one of nearly 40 roads in the Balakot area the authorities say have been affected, cutting off hundreds of villages.

After 10 minutes work the machine stops, an officer blows a whistle and people are allowed to clamber over the landslide.

Many have come from villages already hit by snow.

Families and livestock are moving to lower ground.

"We were not ready for the snow and now this road block is causing us lots of problems," Mohammed Asharaf, a teacher, said.

"It has been blocked for 18 days. Why hasn't the government been able to clear it until now?" he asks.

The town's people have lived in shelters for more than a year

Rafaqat Din Mian, who used to work as guide for foreign tourists, said life had become unbearable.

"People are crying for help. People have a food problem, a water problem and this road problem," he said.

The Nazim or Mayor for Balakot, Junaid Ali Qasim said a camp was being prepared in case some villages needed to be evacuated.

He also said the government had a plan to provide better shelters for everyone living in tents.

Work would start on this within a month, he said.

But, he admitted, reconstruction had been slow and people were understandably frustrated. The winter would only make things worse.

"I was just talking to some elderly people who said they had never seen it snow in the first five or six days of December," he said.

"The more snowfall we have, the bigger the problems we face."