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01/01/2006:

"Aid agencies predicted winter disaster - now it is reality for people of Kashmir"

...people are beginning to die from the cold. Young children and babies are particularly vulnerable. Almost three months after the earthquake that killed 73,000 people in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, half of them children, a second tragedy is unfolding in the mountains. The winter disaster that the relief agencies had feared is now a reality.

According to Ishfaq Ahmed of the Kashmir International Relief Fund, 100 children have died of the cold in the past month in the towns of Muzaffarabad and Bagh alone, and the death toll in more remote regions must be higher.

Three and a half million earthquake victims are still homeless, many of them surviving in makeshift tent cities. Relief workers, who are already speaking of a lost generation, fear the death toll from the winter - temperatures dip to minus 10C at night - could exceed that of the quake. "The winter will be a bigger killer," said Mr Ahmed.
independent.co.uk