Desperate Pakistanis await earthquake aid
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-11 09:11

The capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, was devastated, with at least 11,000 people reported dead. Masood-ur Rehman, an assistant city commissioner, said 90 percent of the city, and all its government and educational institutions, were destroyed. Relief efforts were hampered by landslides.

"Bodies are scattered in the city," he said. "Ninety percent of victims are still buried under the debris. We are helpless. The city is out of order."

In one neighborhood, shopkeepers scuffled with looters scavenging crushed stores for cooking oil, rice, biscuits and flour.

The storeowners and looters fought with large sticks and rocks, and some looters suffered head wounds. No police were seen.

"We haven't eaten anything for two or three days. The shops are closed and we haven't got anything from the government," said a 20-year-old man who refused to identify himself as he ferreted away stolen goods. "We are desperate and hungry."

Indian Kashmiri residents warm themselves by burning tires after their homes were damaged by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake two days before, in Uri, some 110 kms from Srinagar. [AFP]

Residents said looters also targeted deserted homes and gas stations. Survivors lacked food and water amid little sign of any official relief operation in the devastated city of 600,000. Soldiers on an army truck threw bags of rice to a throng of people with outstretched arms.

About 2,000 residents huddled around camp fires on a soccer field at the city's university campus, where hundreds were feared buried in collapsed classrooms and dormitories. Soldiers burrowed into the concrete with shovels and iron bars.

"I don't think anybody is alive in this pile of rubble," said Uzair Khan, a rescue worker. "But we have not lost hope."

Mohammed Ullah Khan, 50, said a few biscuits handed out by relief workers were his only food for three days. His three-story home had collapsed, but his family of 10 survived because they were on the top floor.

"My children are now on a hillside, under the open sky, with nothing to eat," he said while camping on the soccer field.

A doctor, Iqbal Khan, said survivors were at risk for diarrhea and pneumonia if drinking water and other supplies did not arrive quickly.

An eight-member British team using a body-detecting dog, drills, chain saws and crowbars pulled a 20-year-old tailor from underneath a two-story building 54 hours after it collapsed.

The man, who identified himself as Tariq, was trapped under concrete slabs and wood beams, dead bodies flanking him, in what used to be a two-story building.

"I haven't eaten in three days, but I'm not hungry," said the dusty, wide-eyed man, who begged for water. He had suffered a leg injury and was carted away on a door.

In Balakot, a badly hit town in North West Frontier Province, townspeople hearing cries for help broke through a heap of concrete that was once a school and rescued two girls. A crowd pulled to safety the first girl, wearing a green shirt and with a gold bracelet on her arm.

The second girl, a toddler, had scratches on her face. Several men brushed dust from her clothing and gave her water.

"There are many more alive inside, but we can't take them all out because we don't have government efforts here," said Sadan Khattak, a student from Peshawar who was helping rescue efforts.

An injured Kashmiri woman with tears in her eyes sits in shock waiting to be evacated from the earth-quake hit town of Balakot in the North Western Frontier Province. [AFP]

Mohammed Farhad, 9, was pulled from the rubble Sunday night, but his brother died.

"We were having reading lessons when suddenly there was a big noise and the roof collapsed on us," he said, bursting into tears.

At another site, an 18-month-old boy was pulled alive from the rubble and given to his sobbing father. The boy was given a box of milk to drink.

Bodies were laid out on a basketball court, while workers with pickaxes dug up a playground for use as a mass grave.

In the Pakistani capital, rescuers continued digging through the ruins of a 10-story apartment building after pulling the woman and child to safety. Asim Shafik, who was assisting in rescue efforts, said voices were heard in the rubble, where at least two dozen people died.

Estimates of Pakistan's death toll varied. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said it exceeded 20,000. The top elected official in Kashmir, Sardar Sikandar Hayat, said it was more than 25,000, while the province's communications minister, Tariq Mahmood, said it was more than 30,000.