UN assists effort to relocate almost 4,000 survivors from last year’s Pakistan earthquake

Almost 4,000 survivors from last year’s earthquake in northern Pakistan have been moved to relief camps from villages at risk of landslides as heavy monsoon rains lash the quake-affected areas, the United Nations relief agency said today, highlighting an intense, month-long UN-assisted relocation effort.

There were concerns that more than 50,000 people might have to be moved from villages in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to existing camps until next spring but fortunately the numbers were much lower as most villages were only partially at risk, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a news release.

The relocation exercise was completed over the weekend after four weeks of work by the Camp Management Organisation (CMO) in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), UNHCR and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

UNHCR, CMO and the other agencies provided the same assistance to all relocating villagers – two tents for each family, with bedding and other food and relief items. Camps have also been provided with better water and power supplies and new sanitation facilities.

To prepare the affected villagers for relocation before the onset of monsoon rains around mid-July, a mass information campaign was launched in the second half of June. The relocation was mandatory due to the risks involved, but the villagers had a choice as to which camp they wanted to move to.

Some villagers chose to go to their families or rent land to pitch their tents, but a great majority opted for the existing camps in and around the provincial capital, Muzaffarabad. Most of the camps are fairly close to the evacuated villages. So the evacuees have easy access to the city, where many work, as well as to their village of origin, where they may want to visit.

The 8 October earthquake, whose epicentre was in Muzaffarabad, killed over 73,000 people, injured nearly 70,000 and left millions homeless.