http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051108/ap_on_...wN5bnN1YmNhdA--

Death Toll in Asian Quake Surpasses 87,000

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer 42 minutes ago

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - One month after South Asia's Oct. 8 earthquake, the estimated death toll shot up sharply to 87,350 on Tuesday following a new count of Pakistan's casualties, an official said.

The United Nations again appealed for more money to help victims, urging donors to be as generous as with other recent disasters. The world body said it urgently needs $42 million to maintain the aid effort through November.

But U.N. officials in Pakistan said they were cautiously optimistic that a humanitarian catastrophe could be avoided.

The toll in Pakistan jumped to 86,000 — or 13,000 higher than the government's official toll — under a broad assessment by the
World Bank and Asian Development Bank, working with local governments and aid agencies, Pakistani Finance Ministry official Iqbal Ahmed Khan said Tuesday.

India has reported 1,350 deaths in its portion of divided
Kashmir.

Khan said the new tally for Pakistan came after more bodies were pulled from debris and recovery teams reached areas previously blocked by landslides unleashed by the magnitude-7.6 quake and its hundreds of aftershocks.

"This is their assessment, which we think is fair enough," Khan said. "They had various teams in the field. This is feedback from the field."

The central Pakistani government's official death toll — still at 73,000 — typically has lagged behind other tallies, including those of local provincial governments in the quake-affected areas, whose most conservative estimates have added up to 79,000 for Pakistan for more than two weeks.

Aid officials fear that winter could bring a new wave of deaths among survivors, from hypothermia and respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia.

"We are very anxious about when the snow falls," said quake survivor Hafiz Mohammed Aslam, a preacher in the village of Kotramaskhan in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir. "It will become a terrible situation, especially for the children."

The U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said Monday in New York that people in Kashmir could "freeze to death if they don't get assistance in weeks," urging everyone from individuals to oil-rich nations to be as generous as they were with other recent natural disasters.

However, at a news conference Tuesday in Islamabad, U.N. aid officials indicated that funding and the efforts of aid workers have begun to catch up with the needs.

"Perhaps for the first time since Oct. 8, there is a sense of cautious optimism in the humanitarian community," said local U.N. emergency coordinator Jan Vandemoortele. "The job is colossal, but there is a feeling that this is a doable job. It is not mission impossible."

The U.N. officials made no mention of scaling back helicopter aid flights, as they had warned about doing in recent weeks unless more funding came through.

The U.N. said it has received about $85 million of the $550 million it has asked for, with about $49 million more pledged. More than $40 million is needed immediately to get through November, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Monday from Geneva.

The quake destroyed the homes of more than 3 million people across Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and its portion of Kashmir, many of whom have moved into the many tent camps that have been set up in foothills of the Himalayas.

The U.N. has launched "Operation Winter Race" to shelter to about 200,000 people living at high altitudes above the snow line in the rugged Himalayas and about 150,000 expected to come down to tent camps at lower elevations.

Tents already pledged and in the pipeline should take care of those people, Egeland said.

Survivors continue to stream into the Kashmiri Pakistan hub of Muzaffarabad, where they pick up tents from aid agencies before trudging out of town with canvas and poles on their backs in search of any flat ground not already claimed by other survivors.

Some can be seen trekking along the Neelum River up to windy bluffs overlooking the city, where they must dig into the slope with crowbars to carve a shelf big enough to pitch a tent.

"Life is very difficult," 28-year-old survivor Jamil said in the Pakistani Kashmir hub of Muzaffarabad as he hauled a freshly donated tent up to a cold mountainside camp. "I waited one month for a tent and our food doesn't last long."

Also Tuesday, about 200 supporters of Pakistan's largest Islamic group, Jamaat-e-Islami, rallied in Muzaffarabad to protest the detention by police of a member at a relief camp for earthquake survivors. Police on Monday picked up Jamaat-e-Islamic activist Shamsher Khan during a raid on the relief camp he runs for quake survivors but released him about five hours later, said deputy police chief Atta Ullah.
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I have not yet seen a single donation booth in my area, and there were tons when the Tsunami/Hurricane hit. Another article said about 1 million are homeless and not enough help is getting in. Sad to hear.

Everyone should get involved.
It's something as catastrophic as this should not be overlooked (as it currently is.)

This is old news.


But still very tragic

Actually, no, it's pretty recent.
And great that you added that disclaimer, or I would have been hounding you.

What a suprise. :rolleyes:

@bsu Yes, the exact same thing happened, everybody here is worried out themselves not about other countries. Where did you hear about that number, I thought it would be less. But then again, nothing could have brought to it to prevent such a cause, and people are not eisley informed

"Ouch" Dan. The fact that you've got a smilie rolling eyes at my post is so disheartening. I'm not going to take any sass on this subject.

And as for bsu hearing the number, I'm pretty sure that's why the link posted to the article is there. Unless of course, (and I don't doubt this) bsu's intellectual prowess and concern for humanity insinuated a passionate fire and caused him to write this article.


But, that's just me.

Many people have asked me where to donate for earthquake relief. Here are some of the organizations mounting the largest operations and their websites.

Unicef
www.unicef.org

UNHCR
www.unicef.org.uk

World Food Programme
www.wfp.org

Disasters Emergency Committee
www.dec.org.uk

Kashmir International Relief Fund
www.kirf.org

Red Cross/ Red Crescent
www.icrc.org

I knew someone would make a notion about that. So that's what he roll eyes mean.

Ah, the link I posted is broken now. Sorry about that. But I did get the numbers from the original article Dan.

"and people are not eisley informed"
That's not true O_o;; I don't get why a huge disaster like this isn't getting much coverage.... it's strange.

it's getting a lot of coverage in certain channels, like npr and pbs. i don't watch major cable news channels but i would assume that this sort of disaster counts as 'old news' them and they've moved on to milking the latest tragedy for ratings instead. <_<

dan is right though, that in america at least, people are too worried about themselves to be likely to donate much, if anything--the katrina/rita event and the economic fallout it caused is going to make people wary of donating anything to other causes. in times of economic unrest the first thing to suffer is charity--people don't think they have the funds to donate and become very choosy about where they put their money.

it's not simply a case of getting the news out there--i think most of the american public is aware that this is an issue. the real hurdle isn't even convincing them they should donate--it's convincing them they can.

the fact that there have been few (any?) 'donation booths' set up specifically for this disaster is probably hurting the relief effort here in america. it's generally not enough to simply say "you can go here to donate" because people will either forget or find it too much of a hassle or feel embarrassed if they're donating a small amount. a person is much more likely to donate if s/he sees a booth that's happy to take, say, his/her spare change. it works around the two biggest problems people have with donating--they aren't worried about giving 'too much' and it's easy to do.

the other thing that i would guess is affecting the relief effort would be the fact that, since the UN is calling for worldwide participation, the 'somebody else will do it' mentality many people have may possibly be exacerbated. :|

Should be fixed now, bsu.

@JJ: Yes, people know they can. Actually, disaster relief for the Tsunami opened up immediately, and although Pakistan didn't at once, they did allow donations a few days after. People can donate, and they're aware of that, it's targeting the people who care enough to donate. My school together has already donated a whole bunch of money to Tsunami and Earthquake relief funds, and we're having a massive festival this friday to raise money to give to them as well.

It's not old news. That's ridiculous. The Tsunami has yet to become old news. The fact that 87,000 people died is a big deal. More people paid attention to the Tsunami not only because of it's numeric overwhelmance, but because a lot of the people that died there were European and American tourists (my best friend lost her sister, so I know.)
Nobody's paying attention to this Earthquake because it's a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY WITH MUSLIMS. There's the cold hard truth. I've already heard many people arguing (on Fox, and CNN) that it was God's will to come down on Pakistan.
(This doesn't really address your post, JJ, and I agree with it as well, although a lot of action has been taken in the tri-state area for relief, mainly set up by south asian teachers and professors. Which, I find, relieving, but, in some cases, sad.)

I'm done.