Snowy in Kashmir

On this 54°F Springtime dead of winter afternoon here in Philly, let's discuss Pakistan. This NY Times piece jolted me.

Three months after the devastating earthquake leveled every house in this mountain village in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the newlyweds Zaheer and Shazia found themselves sleeping once more in the open, this time in the snow. Their cotton tent had collapsed on top of them in the night under a heavy snowfall, so for four nights, they huddled in the open on a rope bed by a fire.

"It was very cold, the snow fell on our faces," said Shazia, 19, with a shy smile. "We need a shelter, food rations and bedding."

Despite an enormous aid effort over the three months since the Oct. 8 earthquake, rescue workers are still finding new villages in need of the most basic assistance to hope to survive the harsh winter snows. Two heavy snowfalls in the last month have hampered the relief operation and tested the population of this mountainous area, still traumatized by the quake, which killed 73,338 people, seriously injured 69,000 and left an estimated 2.5 million homeless.

I just threw in $25 to World Vision's effort for the Asian Earthquake SAVE Fund.

Listed on the right pane are some more charities, foreign and domestic, that do good things.