Race against time for survivors as Himalayan winter looms

Pakistan: The pungent smell of rotting bodies hangs thick in the air in Medina Market in the centre of Muzaffarabad, the capital…

Pakistan: The pungent smell of rotting bodies hangs thick in the air in Medina Market in the centre of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, writes Ramita Navai in Muzaffarabad

"I know there's a family under there," says Nadim Mir holding a scarf over his nose to block out the stench. "But what can we do? We need bulldozers - we can't do this with our bare hands."

Muzaffarabad, in the lush Khaghan Valley, was razed in the October 8th earthquake that killed over 73,000 people. All that remains now is a tangle of destruction. Mounds of rubble, twisted metal, crumbled bricks and broken glass have turned the city into a shapeless mass with few navigable roads.

Medina Market was the throbbing heart of Muzaffarabad, a tight matrix of alleys run by merchants and crammed with stalls and shops. The earthquake caused a domino effect here with buildings toppling on each other, erasing all in their path.

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Some stallholders make daily trips here to dig at the rubble with bare hands, desperate to recover their goods. Around them barefoot children splash in pools of stagnant, viscid brown water. Above, lopsided buildings cracked in half by the earthquake wobble as stray animals and humans scavenge in the decaying detritus.

Nadim lost 17 members of his family including his eight-year-old son who was at school when the earthquake struck. His livelihood was also buried in the rubble - with 70 per cent of the city destroyed, his small spice stall did not stand a chance.

"But I'm lucky," says Nadim sadly. "My family has a tent in a camp." Over 20 camps have sprung up around Muzaffarabad, with tents tightly packed between rubble and ruin. Some families have made their own tents, patching together old clothes and blankets. But many are sleeping rough with not even a blanket to protect them against the biting cold.

Ayshea and her four small children trekked for nearly two days from their village in the foothills of the Himalayas to reach Muzaffarabad, leaving Ayshea's husband behind to look after their herd of goats.

"I didn't want to leave, but my youngest child was too cold and I was scared," she says. "But I came here and nobody could give me shelter."

Ayshea waited for a tent for over a week but when nothing arrived, she decided to take action. Using bits of wood and corrugated iron salvaged from the ruins of the city, Ayshea made a small shack in a camp in one of the city's parks. Measuring only 3m by 2m, she shares her shelter with nine others, including her four children.

The smell of sewage wafts across the camp as she cooks lentils in a blackened pot, using an upturned oil drum as a makeshift stove. She burns branches she snaps off trees for fuel, and the thick, grey smoke fills her tiny hut behind her.

This is the first hot meal her children will have had since the earthquake struck one month ago.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says that about half a million people are still without shelter.

Thousands of villages are perched high in the mountains and deep inside remote gorges and valleys. For the aid workers, getting relief to these communities has become a race against time. In a matter of weeks the bitter Himalayan winter will descend in an onslaught of heavy snow, fierce winds and rain, cutting survivors off from the outside world and lifesaving help.

The United Nations has warned that if these survivors are not given shelter, Pakistan could be facing another humanitarian disaster, with hundreds and thousands dying of cold.

Reaching these survivors is proving to be a logistical nightmare. Landslides have made most roads impassable and negotiating mountain roads is an arduous, treacherous task with rocks still showering down from the mountainside.

The Red Cross has resorted to using 140 mules in the flattened town of Balakot in North West Frontier Province. But it is a painfully slow process as one mule can only carry two tents and it can take days to reach some villages.

Many areas can only be reached by helicopter, but with aid agencies suffering from a lack of funding they say is due to donor fatigue, this option is simply too costly. Even the United Nations is feeling the pinch.

The UN Flash Appeal has only received 15 per cent of the $550 million pledged.

"Helicopters cost $11,000 an hour and that's excluding fuel," said Irja Sandberg, head of the Red Crescent Pakistan delegation.

Survivors such as Nadim are all too aware of the lack of funds.

"We know that everyone is fed up of giving money, with the tsunami and the hurricane in America, but we are just really desperate now. I'm scared of losing any more of my children. It's cold and we have no blankets," he said.

"Pakistan is a poor country and we have no one else to turn to."