With heavy rain and snow lashing Pakistan’s part of disputed Kashmir, more than 100 people were brought to hospitals with hypothermia and respiratory diseases.

The bad weather also blocked roads and grounded helicopters for one day on Sunday as troops raced against the approaching Himalayan winter to ferry aid to remote areas devastated by the October 8 earthquake that killed more than 87,000 people.

The troops relied on vehicles where possible, and mules in other places.

Three-month-old Waqar Mukhtar died of pneumonia hours after he was brought in from nearby Neelum Valley, said Abdul Hamid, a doctor at a hospital in the regional capital, Muzaffarabad. In the town of Bagh, a middle-aged man died a day after he was brought in with hypothermia, said Lt.-Col. Johan De Graaf, senior medical officer at the Nato field hospital there.

"If we don’t get people into shelters, they will die. It’s as simple as that,” said Air Commodore Andrew Walton, commander of the Nato disaster response team in Pakistan. "That’s the second disaster that’s waiting to happen if we in the international community don’t do something about it.”

Walton said it was critical to get more shelter materials and mobile medical teams quickly to high-altitude areas where the weather is worst.  

Pakistan’s army said as many as 14 battalions of military engineers are working with volunteers and aid workers in 10-man teams to build shelter homes of about 19 sq. metres, with priority given to families who have no male member in the home and are living above 1,500 metres. It said 18,269 shelters have been completed.

The season’s first snow fell on mountains near Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, and elsewhere late on Saturday and downpours and snow falls continued yesterday. Hundreds of women, children and the elderly already were suffering from respiratory illnesses, diarrohea, scabies, tetanus and other ailments even before the first cold snap.

Mohammed Shoaib, a doctor at a field hospital, said yesterday that about 40 elderly and children suffering from hypothermia had been brought in there, and other facilities reported similar stories. The situation may be worse in remote areas, where landslides triggered by the precipitation has blocked main roads. Maj. Farooq Nasir, spokesman for the army, said troops halted traffic on the main Neelum Valley road "to avoid loss of life” after overnight rain and snow.

Engineers were working to clear the road, which links Muzaffarabad with scores of villages and towns and leads to the Line of Control, the heavily militarised frontier that divides Kashmir between Pakistan and India.

Meanwhile, earthquake relief operations were back on track yesterday a day after the first harsh winter weather grounded helicopter flights and disrupted some road transport.