The United Nations welcomed India and Pakistan's agreement yesterday to open their Kashmir border to earthquake survivors and relief supplies but said getting aid to millions would remain a logistical nightmare.

In a statement early yesterday after talks in Islamabad, India and Pakistan agreed to open crossings at five points along the military Line of Control dividing Kashmir from November 7.

A UN-led effort to get food and shelter to survivors of the October 8 earthquake that killed more than 56,000 people, mostly in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir but including 1,300 on the India-controlled side, has been hampered by landslides blocking many mountain roads.

With the Himalayan winter just weeks away and over three million people homeless or needing shelter, aid workers fear as many again could die of hunger and exposure unless help reaches them quickly.

The United Nations welcomed the agreement and said it would be meeting with the government to assess how it would facilitate relief work, but warned huge difficulties remained.

"It will certainly not do any harm, but it will certainly not solve the logistical nightmare we are facing," said UN emergency co-ordinator Jan Vandemoortele.

"It is absolutely positive, but it will not turn mountains into plains. We are still planning to get a major airlift going throughout the winter."

Natasha Hryckow, UN logistics co-ordinator in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, said the agreement should make a huge difference when it came to reaching large numbers of people cut off near the border, such as in the Neelum river valley.

"If we had the potential to open it from the other side, we start getting road access to areas we can only fly helicopters to at the moment.

"That's obviously going to make a huge impact on how much we can shift in and how many people we can keep in those areas."

Frustration over slow aid

A spokesman for the government of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, Abdul Khaliq Wasi, called the agreement "a very good thing" and said it would help those who had yet to receive assistance, but he added: "It should have happened much earlier."

Some Kashmiri families will undoubtedly benefit, but large movements of people are unlikely, given the massive destruction of roads and bridges and the complex bureaucratic process involved in getting permission from both governments to cross.

Amanullah Khan, head of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, said the agreement would only benefit a few people and help make the border division permanent. "The benefit will be much less than the political costs," he said.

Chakothi, a town in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir near one of the five crossing points to be opened, remains inaccessible by road and residents have expressed frustration at the delay in aid supplies.
 
Getting aid across will mean much more work. The Friendship Bridge opened to allow the start of a bus service between the two sides of Kashmir this year has been badly damaged and army engineers on both sides are battling to clear many landslides.

The United Nations has complained about a slow donor response to its appeals for emergency funds. It says unusually heavy snow is expected in the earthquake zone within weeks and thousands more lives are at risk unless donors give another US$250 million.

(China Daily October 31, 2005)