UN Says Not Enough Tents In The World For Quake Survivors

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UN Says Not Enough Tents In The World For Quake Survivors
by Danny Kemp
Islamabad (AFP)

A senior United Nations official said Tuesday there were not enough tents in the world to protect refugees from the coming winter after the October 8 earthquake in South Asia.

Tents are a priority item with around three million people made homeless, many of them forced to live in the open in plummeting temperatures in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and parts of North West Frontier Province.

"It is fair to say the indication is that there are not enough tents in the world available to support the requirements," Andrew MacLeod, chief operations officer in the UN emergency response centre in Islamabad, told AFP.

Pakistan on Tuesday banned all exports of tents, a day after it said it would even buy tents from its rival India.

The UN has said it had already exhausted the supply of the vital items in Pakistan, which is itself the world's biggest producer of so-called winterized tents.

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