Snow/rainfall bring more hardship for quake-hit people
BOONI: Snowfall and rain have brought more miseries and added to the suffering of people reeling under the impact of the recent earthquake here.
On the other hand, Deputy Commissioner Osama Ahmad Warraich asked the quake-hit people to move from their tents to any nearby government building such as school or BHU as the weather would become more severe soon. The rain/snowfall has started in Booni, Charun-Oveer, Kosht, Laspur, Mulkhow and other quake-hit areas of upper Chitral when this report was filed on Wednesday morning.
The displaced people in Charun-Oveer have taken shelter in the local Jamat Khana but it is not known for how long they would be staying there. Reports reaching in Booni showed that there were fears that the quake-damaged houses would also collapse in the rain. The earthquake-hit areas have been under a severe cold-wave for many days. The affectees in the quake-hit areas still await relief items to cope with the cold-wave.
An official of a non-governmental organization working in Mastuj told ChitralToday that they were still carrying out an assessment of the damages caused to the houses in different villages of the Mastuj tehsil. He said that tents provided to the homeless people by the government departments and NGOs were not worth protecting the inmates against the severe cold.
He expressed the fear about the outbreak of weather-related diseases among the affected people, especially children. He said there was an urgent need of supplying medicines to the far-off areas of upper Chitral, including the Yarkhun, Laspur and Torkhow valleys where no healthcare centres existed.
This is the right as well as the high time to draw the attention of the Government towards the problem of flood and earth quack affectees in Chitral. People of Mastuj are very much right Homeless families living in tents are facing hardships that one cannot imagine of that. Temperature outside is in minus. Right now due to earth quack, roads are badly damaged. Local communities have repaired it for light traffic for movement and for bringing essential commodities and fuel. Since roads are blocked for heavy traffic, the situation is becoming more serious in upper Chitral when petrol and diesel are going dry with pumps when it seems that Government is doing nothing for that. Pump owners are carrying fuel in barrels from Chitral Town. Implementation of announcements made by Centre and Province for rehabilitation of infrastructure is still awaited.