Annan Speaks to Musharraf: UN to carry-out gigantic plan for quake-Victims
By Aziz Malik - PakistanTimes.net Federal Bureau Chief

ISLAMABAD: President General Pervez Musharraf and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan have discussed a long term, relief and rehabilitation plan for the quake victims of NWFP and Azad Kashmir.

The UN Secretary General and President Musharraf during the 15-minute telephonic conversation late on Thursday-night discussed wide-ranging plans for reconstruction work in the tremor devastated areas.

The President appreciated the personal efforts of the UN Secretary General for the support he is extending to Pakistan in this trying time.

Meanwhile, President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday that the amount of foreign reconstruction aid pledged after the South Asia quake is "totally inadequate".

BBC quotes him as saying that about $620m had been promised, but that Pakistan needed about $5bn to rebuild devastated areas.

An estimated three million people in Pakistan lack adequate shelter. Pakistan has confirmed 49,739 deaths, most of them in Azad Kashmir.

Ten thousand tents will be flown to Pakistan over the next few weeks, but the UN has warned there may not be enough winterised tents in the world to meet the needs of the earthquake victims.

Call by UN

At the same time, the United Nations has appealed to the international community to step up aid to Pakistan if it wants to prevent a “second, massive wave of death”, while international aid officials described the relief operation as one of the toughest the world has ever known.

“We have never had this kind of logistical nightmare ever. We thought the tsunami was the worst we could get. This is worse,” Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator, said in Geneva.

Nearly two weeks after the earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people, the United Nations estimated half a million people were still cut off.

Second Berlin Airlift

Egeland called on the international community to launch a “second Berlin airlift”, referring to the air shuttle that overcame the Soviet blockade of the German city in the late 1940s. “Tens of thousands of people’s lives are at stake and they could die if we don’t get to them in time,” Egeland said.

In New York, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for an “immediate and exceptional escalation of the global relief effort”. “That means a second, massive wave of death will happen if we do not step up our efforts now,” Annan said.

He said he would go in person next week to a UN-sponsored donors’ conference in Geneva on the disaster and urged governments to attend at the highest level.

“I expect results,” he said. “There are no excuses. If we are to show ourselves worthy of calling ourselves members of humankind, we must rise to this challenge.”

Harder than Tsunami

Annan complained that donors had only made firm commitments of 12 percent of the UN flash appeal of $312 million, while the Asian Tsunami appeal had been more than 80 percent funded within 10 days of the disaster.

Aid officials said the relief operation was harder than that following the Tsunami. “It’s actually scary if you see the situation in the villages. You feel a sense of urgency you’ve not felt before, even in the tsunami,” the World Food Programme’s Mia Turner said. “This is probably the greatest logistical challenge faced by an emergency operation.”

Quake Toll above 52,000

Yet another report says that more than 52,000 people in Pakistan have died in the earthquake that rocked the country nearly two weeks ago.

The latest toll, released Friday by the country's earthquake relief commission, came as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a greater world response to help quake victims in Pakistan.

Relief agencies say thousands more in the Himalayas face death from exposure. "There are no excuses," Annan said. "If we are to show ourselves worthy of calling ourselves members of humankind, we must rise to this challenge. Our response will be no less than a measure of our humanity."

The UNICEF

UNICEF said it has yet to reach an estimated 120,000 children in Pakistan's mountainous north, and about 10,000 of those could die of hunger, hypothermia and disease within a few weeks.

Annan called on international groups, such as NATO and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to contribute helicopters, trucks and heavy-lifting equipment.

Relief agencies need up to 45,000 more winterized tents, 2 million blankets and sleeping bags, water, sanitation equipment and food supplies, he said.

Annan urged governments and relief agencies to send representatives "at the highest level" to a donors conference in Geneva next week. He said that international donors have pledged a little more than 8 percent -- or $37 million -- of the $312 million that relief agencies estimate is needed.

By contrast, donors responded to the U.N. goal for tsunami relief funds within 10 days of the Indian Ocean region disaster last December, Annan said.

Some 3 million in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir remain homeless, and the country now faces "a second wave of massive death," Annan said.

The October-8 quake already has been blamed for the deaths of over 50,700 people and injuries to 67,000 in Pakistan, according to its government.

Regional authorities in Pakistan, however, cite a much higher death toll -- more than 79,000 -- based on information filtering in from outlying areas and as more bodies are pulled from the rubble of collapsed buildings.

UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, said there were still hundreds of cut-off villages needing urgent help. “There are still too few helicopters to reach more than 1,000 remote villages with life-saving supplies that children urgently need,” UNICEF director Ann Veneman said in a statement.

Aid workers say they have only three, maybe four, weeks left to distribute tents to shelter people from the Himalayan winter. “I can’t emphasis enough the urgency. We have a short window of opportunity and a short few weeks to really get this into high gear,” Turner said. “Shelter is crucial and if people don’t get that soon there will be a crisis of a different kind - people will start dying of exposure.”

ADB, World Bank start Estimation

And a story from Manila says that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank said they would start an assessment in Pakistan on Monday of the needs and reconstruction costs after the devastating earthquake two weeks ago.

The Manila-based ADB said its part of the assessment would focus on education, transport, water, energy and agriculture, while the World Bank would concentrate on livelihood restoration, housing, health, the private sector and the environment.

The joint team is expected to submit its report by mid-November, the ADB said in a statement on Friday. “Efficient coordination is crucial at this stage to ensure that work is carried out as quickly as possible according to our respective strengths and experience," said Peter Fedon, the ADB's country director in Pakistan.

The World Bank team will also conduct an economic assessment, assess hazard risk management and social safeguard needs, with the ADB assessing the capacity for reconstruction. "The first thing is to provide all possible assistance to the communities affected by the earthquake," John Wall, the World Bank's country director for Pakistan, said in the statement.

"At the same time it is imperative that the country's poverty reduction programme does not lose steam." The day after the Oct. 8 earthquake, the ADB reallocated $10 million from ongoing projects for emergency assistance in the worst affected areas and said it was prepared to significantly increase the amount.

The World Bank has announced $40 million to be redirected from existing projects and has said the amount would run to hundreds of millions of dollars, as soon as it was useful.●