ISLAMABAD: Relief and rescue operation is in full swing after Monday s 7.5 magnitude quake killed more than 270 people in Pakistan and levelled thousands of homes.
According to state radio, relief goods have been airdropped in upper Kohistan valleys on the directives of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif while more than seven thousand five hundred tents, twelve thousand blankets, two thousand mats and over eleven thousand food packages have been distributed among the affected families so far.
Two PAF C-130 aircraft carrying 18,000 pounds of dry ration donated by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and 16,000 pounds of relief goods donated by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) landed at Chitral today.
Meanwhile, the provincial government has released Rs3 billion for relief and rehabilitation activities in the affected areas.
Confirmed death toll so far stands at 272, with more than 2,000 people injured, but a spokesman said the NDMA was still in the process of estimating a final toll.NDMA announced on its website a spike in the number of houses damaged in the quake, from nearly 14,000 to more than 25,000.
More than 15,000 of those were in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone.With winter fast approaching in worst-hit province of KPK, survivors said they and their children were running out of time.
“After November 15 there will be three to four feet of snow here and we have nothing to protect us,” said Mir Wali, whose village Charun Ovir is 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) up in mountainous terrain in the northwestern district of Chitral.Meanwhile, students in northwestern Swat Valley on Thursday returned to some of the schools damaged by the quake. Authorities had earlier said that nearly 150 schools sustained damages in the northwest. Agencies
