1,100 Die in Cold Wave

24/02/2005| IslamWeb

Avalanches in Indian Kashmir, icy temperatures in Afghanistan and torrential rain and snow in Pakistan pushed the death toll yesterday from an extreme cold snap gripping South Asia to more than 1,100, many of them children. In Indian Kashmir army and civilian rescuers braved sub-zero cold and harsh Himalayan winds to search for survivors of avalanches that have claimed 229 lives since Saturday, police said.

 

"Some bodies have been buried, some are inside a mosque and others scattered on the snow. The entire village is devastated," rescuer Ghulam Mohammed Wagay said in Waltingo village, one of a string of communities crushed by snowslides.

 

The army was flying in doctors and nurses to avalanche-hit parts of southern Indian Kashmir, along with snowmobiles to reach remote regions.

 

In Afghanistan frigid weather had claimed at least 350 lives - 211 of them children - as poor parents fed opium to their youngsters to ease their suffering from hunger, numbing cold and respiratory ailments such as pneumonia.

 

"Some parents don't go to doctors and administer opium to the kids to stop the cough, and that stops the cough but can also kill them," said Health Minister Sayeed Amin Fatimie.

 

"We have 211 confirmed deaths of children under the age of five due to cold-related diseases such as respiratory tract infections or whooping cough in the last one month and a half," Fatimie added.

 

One humanitarian group, Catholic Relief Services, said up to 1,000 children could have been killed by brutal weather in western Ghor province alone, although officials rejected the figure.

 

On the outskirts of Kabul Mohammed Ismael, who lost his infant son, cradled one of his two surviving boys. "The child was only 15 days old. A boy. There were icicles on the inside of the tent when we woke up. How can a baby survive that?" he asked.

 

In Pakistan, heavy snow and lashing rains have killed at least 533 people at both ends of the country in the past three weeks, federal government relief centre spokesman Mashal Khan said.

 

Troops have airlifted to safety those most in peril and dropped supplies to others. The worst hit area was North-West Frontier Province where at least 335 have died. Another 42 died in the Tribal Areas.

 

Floods are believed to have claimed 85 lives in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, many when the Shadi Kor dam near the coast burst February 10 under pressure from rain and runoff from melting mountain snow.

 

Weather officials in New Delhi blamed a westerly disturbance for the deep freeze.

 

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION

 

Volunteers carry the body of a dead woman to a mass burial site at Waltingo Nar, 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of Srinagar during a search for survivors of devastating snowslides in Kashmir. (AFP)