| " Many
villages were totally ravaged, and no houses were left standing,
as none of them really complied with construction standards.
The smell of death and rotting corpses floated around the
wreckage. Hundreds of bodies were not found and will only
be recovered when the rubbish is cleaned. A number of mountain
roads located near cliffs collapsed, making the access to
mountain villages very difficult. Water is urgently needed,
as people come down from the mountains to the plains and
set up camps. They are used to drinking the water from mountain
rivers, and do the same thing in the plain where water is
not as clean and is easily polluted. If they continue to
use it, the risk that waterborne diseases might spread is
high. We must also teach people hygiene rules. The people
who live in these very cold mountains are not used to washing
during the winter. But in the plains, temperatures are much
higher. This is why our teams distribute hygiene kits. "
(Matthieu, a logistician in SOLIDARITÉS' emergency
team in Pakistan)
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PRESENTATION
OF OUR WATER PROGRAMMES
PAKISTAN: Providing
water and hygiene
to the victims of the earthquake
The earthquake that shook Pakistan (North West Frontier Province
and Kashmir) on October 8, 2005, caused at least 73,000 deaths,
69 000 people were wounded, and thousands of children were
left without parents; a total of 3 million people were affected,
including at least one million homeless persons. Thousands
of villages and 5,000 to 8,000 schools were ravaged.
SOLIDARITÉS decided to move in swiftly and to implement
emergency action, in order to aid earthquake victims, mostly
high mountain villagers living in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Our action focused on the North West Frontier province, where
camps host many victims and where many valleys have seen all
their villages destroyed.
Emergency programme for access to
drinking water and sanitation implemented jointly with UNICEF
(United Nations Children's Fund) and the British DFID (Department
for International Development). Period from December
1, 2005, to May 31, 2006, with a budget of 498,000 Euros.
This programme was preceded by emergency operations involving,
in particular, the distribution of first necessity products.
It was initiated to cover the water needs of displaced persons
living in the camps of Mera (15,000 people) and Batera (1,500
people), located within a five-hour drive of the capital Islamabad,
in the north-west, as well as of the Besham valley inhabitants
(36,000 inhabitants are concerned).
We plan to:
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Supply 160,000 litres of drinking water
per day to the camp of Mera (15,000 people): transport by
trucks, bladders (flexible tanks) will be connected to water
booms. Concurrently, we are working to implement alternative
sustainable solutions to replace these emergency supply operations,
by networking the water supply from the camp's well, by expanding
and repairing a local network.
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Set up a water supply network for 1,500
people in a second camp: Batera.
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Build latrines, showers and clothes' washing
areas in the camp of Mera, and promote hygiene in Mera as
well as in Batera ; our teams also distribute "hygiene
kits" containing soap, toothpaste, lice combs, etc.
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SOLIDARITÉS also plans to rehabilitate
the water supply networks of 11 villages in the valley of
Besham and the town of Besham (15,000 inhabitants).
SOLIDARITÉS' team in Pakistan currently comprises
7 expatriate volunteers and around 20 Pakistanis.
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