MUZAFFARABAD — Pakistan Army flew a team of geologists to an isolated northwestern valley yesterday to investigate reports of possible volcanic activity that could force the evacuation of 150,000 people from the area, an official said.
The two-man team left to survey the Alai Valley after villagers reported what they said could be a volcano, said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.
The two experts from the Geological Survey of Pakistan, Naseer Ali Khan and Abdul Majid, have been taken to Battgram this morning to hold seismic survey of the Allai Valley, sources said.
The people of the area had reported aftershocks and emission of blue smoke from the mountains and constant blasts. Hence, the government decided to hold a survey after these reports.
He said experts are hopeful the villagers are mistaken and speculated that aftershocks of the massive Oct. 8 temblor and landslides could be confusing the terrified inhabitants.
Army helicopters flew over the rugged region of North West Frontier Province Monday and found no immediate signs of an eruption, Sultan said. It was not clear when the geologists would release their findings. Sultan said that if they find evidence of a volcanic eruption the 150,000 people who live in the region will be evacuated.
An estimated 3.3 million people have already been left homeless by the quake, which killed about 80,000 people.
There have been few cases of looting or anarchy amid the chaos, but police in quake-hit Mansehra district, north of Islamabad, said yesterday that they had arrested 350-400 people over the past two weeks for taking relief supplies — whether by stealing them outright or lining up to receive aid more than once.
The arrests have been made in a number of damaged towns since relief started flowing in for quake victims, local police chief Yamin Khan said.
“We want to ensure that only those who need the aid get it,” he said.
A huge international relief effort has been mounted for quake victims, but fears remain for vulnerable communities in distant mountains with the harsh Himalayan winter closing in. Temperatures yesterday dropped as low as 1 degree Celsius (30 degrees Fahrenheit) in the mountains, dangerous weather for those left out of doors. Snow, landslide-blocked roads and funding shortfalls could mean more trouble in the weeks ahead, the UN World Food Program said.
Aid workers have just five weeks to get six months worth of food supplies into the most remote areas of Pakistan before they are cut off, it said in a statement.
“It must be clear to everybody that many people could die if we do not move more quickly,” said the group’s director for the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, Amir Abdullah. “We must have much more funding, much sooner, to gain as much speed as humanly possible in the face of gigantic logistics difficulties.” With winter approaching, one priority overshadows just about everything. “If you can sum it up in one word, it’s shelter,”’ said John Moore, the head of aid in Pakistan for the Canadian International Development Agency, or CIDA.
Tents must be found, purchased, delivered to Pakistan and distributed across some of the world’s most difficult terrain for as many as 800,000 people believed to have no shelter at all.
Cloudy weather yesterday raised concern that rain could fall in the coming days. But Maj. Farooq Nasir, army spokesman in Muzaffarabad, said helicopter relief flights were still operating.
The Alai Valley is located at a height of about 1,800 meters and is surrounded by mountains as high as 3,000 meters.
An official from Pakistan’s meteorological department said there was very little chance of volcanic activity as there was no recent history of eruptions in Pakistan. Meanwhile, a US Army field hospital unit, with more than 130 staff, started treated patients in Muzaffarabad. — Additional input from AP
