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UN, Red Cross say cash crisis hits quake relief

Posted on: Monday, 7 November 2005, 21:24 CST

By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations and the global Red Cross/Red Crescent said on Monday that urgent cash support from the outside world was vital to save thousands of lives as winter moves in on homeless survivors of the Pakistan earthquake.

The United Nations, struggling to raise $550 million for a medium-term program to help quake victims and rebuild shattered communities, appealed to donor countries for $42.4 million to fund relief in the region this month.

And the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, whose calls for funding normally meet a rapid response, said it so far had only 40 percent of the $117 million it asked for soon after the quake on October 8.

In New York, Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian relief coordinator, said the big race was to reach 200,000 people living in the Himalayas above the snow line. Another 150,000 are expected to leave the mountains and join camps for quake victims below.

"It will be a marathon sprint throughout the winter where we have to do lifesaving assistance until the snow melts sometime in April," Egeland told a news conference.

He said many could freeze to death and appealed for stoves in addition to the more than 300,000 tents already on the way.

"This is one of the most complex relief operations ever," said the federation's Finnish secretary-general, Markku Niskala. "I am appealing to people and governments around the world to support us in this humanitarian work."

Official figures now put quake deaths in Pakistan's northern region and the western part of Kashmir that it administers at well over 73,000 with almost the same number injured. Hundreds of thousands have lost their homes.

Egeland said he expected that number to rise, to perhaps, 80,000 because some of the 70,000 injured may die.

"People are dying now from wounds which could have been treated earlier, and lives could have been saved," he said. "And people are presumably also dying in these villages where we haven't reached yet, high up in the mountains."

Niskala, said that without a rapid cash injection relief workers could not get survival equipment to many people who would soon face diving temperatures.

PREVENTABLE DEATHS

Masood Khan, Pakistan's ambassador in Geneva, delivered a similar message to the U.N. meeting, called by the world body's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Relief, OCHA, which Egeland heads.

"If we do not intervene aggressively now, many lives will be lost," Khan declared, according to the officials.

OCHA officials said that, as of Monday, only $83.8 million had been received in cash and legal commitments from donor countries -- mainly the world's richer nations -- to meet an overall U.N. appeal for $550 million launched in mid-October.

Together with oral pledges, the total response was $132.4 million, an increase of only $1 million over the past week despite mounting warnings of a second disaster unless there is a faster flow of shelter supplies and medical aid to the region.

Of the $42.4 million OCHA wanted now as a contribution toward the overall $540 million appeal, just under $18 million would be earmarked for the U.N.'s refugee agency, UNHCR, for setting up and managing shelter camps for the homeless across the quake region before snow begins to fall.

Egeland said that in addition to the U.N. appeal some $232 million had been committed for emergency relief by the Red Cross, NATO and individual nations. Another $600 million had been pledged by individual countries for reconstruction that might begin in a year but was needed now for emergencies.

(Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations contributed to this report)

Source: REUTERS

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