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Cinema turns into treatment centre for Pakistan quake survivors
DPA

Islamabad, Oct 25 (DPA) Space shortages in the Pakistani capital have prompted a volunteers' group to set up a 100-bed temporary post-treatment centre for women at Islamabad's only cinema.

Lateef Khattak, the owner of the cinema, said the centre is the initiative of some like-minded friends to provide post-treatment care as well as psychological counselling to women to help them recover from the trauma of the disaster, which killed more than 53,000 people and injured close to 70,000.

"Our own family can take care of 25 families and others are welcome to chip in for more," Khattak told DPA.

The private cinema building was torched by some militants following the murder of their leader in 2002. After renovation, the building has been vacant and Khattak decided to turn it into a relief centre when the Oct 8 earthquake shook the country. 

Some 13,000 injured people from the quake-ravaged areas have thus far been airlifted to Islamabad and the southern garrison city of Rawalpindi for treatment, outnumbering the number of available beds in hospitals and shelter homes in both cities.

"We don't have the space to keep patients for longer than required after surgical operations," said Sohail Iqbal, a senior official of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS).

Tens of thousands of the over four million homeless have also been pouring into plain areas like Islamabad and Rawalpindi, resulting in space shortages at hospitals, care-centres and government buildings.

Still grappling with the aftermath of the disaster, the government has planned several tent cities in the vicinity of the capital for temporary shelter to the homeless.

Indo-Asian News Service