Mark's Notebook

Christians scramble to aid earthquake victims before worst of winter hits

Christianity Today

by Deann Alford

Evangelical ministries are hurriedly responding to Operation Winter Race, a U.N. effort to gather and distribute aid to Kashmir and Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province before snow and ice cut off devastated mountain villages from transport trucks and helicopters.

A magnitude 7.6 earthquake and aftershocks devastated these regions on October 8. By mid-November, the U.N. reported more than 87,000 dead and 100,000 injured in about 11,500 square miles of some of the world's most rugged terrain. Len Stitt, director of Shelter Now Pakistan, said at least as many people as died in the earthquake may now perish from illness and exposure to harsh winter weather. Children are most vulnerable. Some 3 million people are homeless, the U.N. reports.

Stitt said that Shelter Now has supplied 8,500 tents equipped with stoves, blankets, and mattresses. Shelter Now has employed 54 Pakistanis in unaffected Peshawar to build 1,200 Quonset-hut-style tents from layers of parachute and rubberized plastic fabric and pvc pipe. Each tent, which costs $135, can house an average six-person family for at least six months.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/001/4.21.html

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Last updated Tuesday 13 May 2008