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KYRGYZSTAN: Earthquake survivors battle cold snap

30 Jan 2008 14:30:51 GMT

Source: IRIN

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article
or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's
alone.

DUBAI,
30 January 2008 (IRIN) - Well over half
the roughly 5,000 people made homeless by an earthquake which struck southern
Kyrgyzstan on 1 January are still living in tents and trying to survive harsh
wintry conditions, aid officials say.

"It is extremely cold, particularly in mountain villages where the
temperature drops to minus 20. All affected people want to get back to their
houses or start reconstructing them as soon as possible [but] they cannot do it
now because it is too cold," Aigul Atakanova, head of the disaster management
department of the Kyrgyz Red Crescent Society (KRCS), told IRIN from the Kyrgyz
capital, Bishkek, on 30 January.

The 5.6 degrees (Richter scale) earthquake destroyed five residential
buildings and severely damaged 1,092 homes, rendering at least 900 families
(about 4,500 to 5,400 people) homeless, according to the Kyrgyz Emergency
Situations Ministry. The epicentre was about 30km from Osh in the Ferghana
Valley, Kyrgyzstan's second largest city.

"About 600 families in affected villages are living in tents in their
yards," Ministry spokesman Almazbek Abdraimov told IRIN. He said 121 affected
families in Kara-Suu District were currently staying in a kindergarten.
Fifty-three other families were being accommodated at a university hostel in
Osh. In Nookat District, 112 families had moved in with their relatives or were
staying in temporary shelters. Alai District was also affected, he added.

"Right after the earthquake, we provided the affected people with initial
relief items. Then we appealed to international organisations and donors for
help and received assistance from them, including winterised tents, as we didn't
have them in stock. We also received heaters; and some new electricity
transformers were brought in to replace ones which had broken down," Abdraimov
said.

More coal needed

"We provided the affected people with coal as well because it is
extremely cold, particularly in the mountain villages. It is difficult for
people to cope in this extreme weather, so any assistance in terms of coal will
be welcomed," Abdraimov said.

An aid worker who recently visited several affected villages but did not
want to be identified said that although the survivors had been provided with
fuel, many were running low due to the unusually cold weather. "A sack of coal,
which costs 250 [Kyrgyz] soms [about US$7], lasts only two to three days in this
weather; people cannot afford it. They were poor before the disaster and the
quake has ruined their livelihoods," the aid worker said.

"The affected communities were provided with heaters that run on
kerosene, but it is almost impossible to get kerosene in Osh Province," the
KRCS's Atakanova said, adding that the government had provided extra coal which,
however, was insufficient for their needs. "Many villagers are running low and
they need more fuel to keep them warm in the extreme cold."

"It is mainly men who are staying in the tents put up in their yards as
they don't want to abandon their damaged houses and belongings, whereas the
women and children are staying with their relatives," the KRCS official said.

Rural poverty

According to a World Bank report in September 2007, 43.1 percent of
Kyrgyzstan's 5.1 million people lived in poverty in 2005. About 11 percent were
deemed to be living in extreme poverty.

"Poverty" here was determined on the basis of food and non-food
consumption patterns of the lower income group of the Kyrgyz population,
according to the UN in Kyrgyzstan. It is higher in rural areas (with 51 percent
of the rural population in this category) compared to urban areas (30 percent).
About three-quarters of people below the national poverty line live in rural
areas, according to the World Bank report.

According to the Kyrgyz National Statistics Committee, the poverty line
in 2006 was about US$20 per month.

at/ar/cb

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org/

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