PAKISTAN: Snow and rain across northern Pakistan grounded relief flights yesterday, giving earthquake survivors and rescuers their first big test of the winter.
But aid workers were optimistic that the relief operation launched after the October 8th earthquake would prevent the winter adding large numbers to the death toll, barring another quake or exceptional cold. Some 73,000 people were killed by the earthquake.
The rain began in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, on Saturday night and residents woke to a wet, misty New Year's Day.
Higher up the mountains several inches of snow blanketed the countryside and those trying to survive in flimsy shelters and tents. The vital air relief operation was grounded for only the second time this winter but some aid deliveries were still being made by road, officials said. Although relief workers fear that wet, freezing weather will trigger fresh landslides, they say they are prepared.
"We're well ahead of where anyone expected us to be. We can have pretty lengthy periods of bad weather and it's not going to be a panic," said Natasha Hryckow, UN logistics chief in Muzaffarabad, the hard-hit capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
Clear weather in December enabled the army and aid groups to channel more aid than expected to the three million survivors in the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir and North West Frontier Province.
"We're confident that the basics have been done but we can't be over-confident, we can't get complacent," said Andrew Macleod, head of UN relief operations.
"If things keep going the way they are then we're going to make it through the winter, just."
In the remote Allai Valley in North West Frontier Province, villagers, most of whose homes were destroyed in the quake, are confident of survival.
In the village of Gantar, Mohammed Amin Shah has patched up his ruined farmhouse with donated corrugated iron and plastic sheets, and salvaged bits of timber.
"Our forefathers lived in small houses like this," he said.
"We have wood for fire and the army has given us rations, we should have no problem," Mr Shah said, though adding he needed more corrugated iron.
Across the region, the rubble is being cleared in the towns and markets are busy, even if aftershocks still rattle nerves.
Tents dot the landscape - single ones in gardens, clusters in terraced fields and huge tent camps along main roads and rivers on the floors of steep, winter-brown valleys.
Thanks to the field hospitals and clinics set up throughout the disaster zone, many poor communities are getting better medical care now than before the disaster, relief workers say.
Army engineers have opened up or rebuilt almost all roads, including the Neelum Valley road in Pakistani Kashmir, large sections of which were swept away in landslides triggered by the earthquake, and have been clearing fresh landslides quickly.
Despite the optimism, no one is saying the job is done.
In the Allai Valley, aid workers, the military and villagers say there is a dangerous shortage of corrugated iron sheets for shelters and thousands of families are still waiting for them.
But while some remote settlements may have slipped through the net, most people have, or should soon have, sufficient food, shelter and medical care to get through the winter, they say.