South Asian Earthquake

23 November 2005
The Right Honourable Prime Minister Tony Blair
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA

Dear Prime Minister

South Asian Earthquake

First hand accounts as of the 21st November 2005 from volunteers in Pakistan confirm wide spread fears that remote areas are desperately missing out on aid distribution. Mountainous villages are home to over 1 million people affected by the earthquake yet little if not none of the aid has reached these people. For example, the village of Dhani has at most had six airlifts of aid. The grim reality is that at least 100,000 people in these villages will perish in the imminent Himalayan winter.

The British Government must, in the first instance, acknowledge and accept that the lack of focus on the remote areas is a fact. Only by doing this can it then take the following remedial action:-

Make a sustained effort to put into place the immediate evacuation of
all the people from the remote villages to include Dhani, Ghari
Doubata, Ghari Habib-ul- Allah.

Make the evacuation a number one priority to commence immediately.
Time is lives. Delay will result in death. Soon the snow and rain
will make the proposed evacuation impossible.

Place less emphasis on creating tent cities in remote villages. This is
simply unworkable. Tents cannot withstand the snow conditions and
deaths on a mass scale will occur. The aim should be to evacuate all
those affected. The contingency plan should be to provide hard
shelter.



We urge the Government to respond immediately. This is not the time to think but to act.