KALAS CHUNGRY, Pakistan (AP) — Life was never easy for dirt-poor villagers like 73-year-old widow Kuresha, living amid the clouds in Pakistan's bleak northern mountains. Six months after an earthquake killed more than 80,000 people, it's only gotten tougher.
Despite a massive international relief effort, aid workers are still struggling to reach isolated communities beneath these snowcapped peaks, where thousands of crudely built stone houses were flattened by the 7.6-magnitude quake on Oct. 8, 2005.
Reconstruction of 600,000 permanent homes across the quake zone has scarcely begun, and many like Kuresha are desperate, mired deeper in poverty than ever before.
"All I had was a home before the earthquake, and now I don't even have that," said the toothless, frail and veiled Kuresha, who goes by one name. Her hamlet of Kalas Chungry in the Serin Valley of the North West Frontier Province lies a day's walk away from the nearest town.
Aid efforts to date have provided emergency relief, prevented disease from spreading and kept people alive through the bitter winter months — allaying fears that frigid temperatures could lead to a "second wave" of deaths.
The temblor left 3.5 million people homeless. Some 200,000 went into camps — most of which the government says will be shut by Monday — while the rest sheltered in tents or tin-roofed shacks.
Now, Pakistani and U.N. authorities say April will herald a drive to rebuild permanent homes and improve livelihoods.
The toughest task facing aid workers will be helping mountain settlements like Kalas Chungry. Its people can't afford to resettle on the plains, where housing and other costs are too expensive.
Like many villages in the quake zone, it's reached by a narrow, rocky road only passable by four-wheel drive vehicle or foot. It's perched 8,000 feet up on a sheer, terraced hillside, where the spring weather has thawed snow and ice, destabilizing soil and increasing the risk of landslides.
Khanam Jan, 65, said she lost three daughters in the quake, and one of her sons was critically injured. Her eight other children were unharmed.
"I don't have anything now, and I am just waiting for another earthquake to kill me because my life now is so miserable," she said.
Pressure is growing on aid agencies to reach the needy in such remote regions rather than communities close to main roads that are easier to help. Isolated villagers invariably lack jobs and rely on food aid and remittances from relatives working in lowland cities to get by.
"Work has to be increased, particularly in the remote areas and villages," said Claudia Niederer, a UNICEF official who heads a cluster of foreign agencies focusing on helping people in temporary camps and those returning to rebuild their homes.
"So much has to be done, and people willing to go back to their homes need support," Niederer said.
On Friday, the government launched a major program to build 600,000 houses over the next three years and find ways to provide incomes. Authorities also plan to give a $50 monthly handout to families who are supporting three or more children.
"Our biggest challenge is to build all these homes, plus to make something like 800 health facilities and 6,000 educational establishments, plus building government institutions and restoring roads," said Maj. Gen. Nadeem Ahmad, deputy chairman of Pakistan's Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority. "The task is phenomenal."
Pakistani officials said up to $5 billion is needed for reconstruction projects over the next three years. International donors pledged $6.5 billion in grants and loans at a November conference, of which at least $4.1 billion has been disbursed or committed.
But Nasir Khan, a 31-year-old social worker for the Pakistani charity Haashar, said it was still very difficult for the aid community and the Pakistani government to provide for all those in need.
"The government can't do everything, which means people will get poorer and living in these areas will become harder," said Khan, whose German-funded agency has provided 4,500 temporary homes throughout the Serin Valley, sheltering about 20,000 people.
Kuresha's lot is also set to worsen. The owner of the narrow strip of terraced land on which her igloo-shaped tin-roofed hut now sits wants her to move immediately so he can start growing maize there to feed his cow.
"I can't go back to where my house was because the cracks in the earth are too wide where the quake struck. And now I have nowhere to put my shelter," Kuresha said. "I don't know where I will go."