Earthquake Hits Pakistan-India Border

AP - Sat Oct 8, 9:32 AM ET
Rescue work is in progress at the site of the collapsed 10-story apartment building, after a severe earthquake in Islamabad, Pakistan, Saturday, Oct 8, 2005. A magnitude 7.6 earthquake rocked parts of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, injuring at least a dozen people and damaging dozens of homes and shops. Part of a 10-story apartment building collapsed in Pakistan's capital, and dozens of people were feared trapped in the rubble. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

Earthquake Kills 2,000 in 3 Asia Nations

AP - 29 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border Saturday reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and flattened an apartment building. More than 2,000 people were killed in both nations, and a Pakistan army spokesman called the devastation "a national tragedy." In the capitals of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, buildings shook and walls swayed for about a minute, and panicked people ran from their homes and offices. Tremors continued for hours afterward. Communications throughout the region were cut.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/science/earthquakes_and_volcanoes

Reuters - Sat Oct 8, 2:37 AM ET
A video grab shows Pakistanis gathered around a damaged building in Islamabad following a major earthquake felt across the Indian sub-continent October 8, 2005. Scores of people were feared killed or trapped in two apartments blocks reduced to rubble in Islamabad by a major earthquake on Saturday centred 95 km (60 miles) northeast of the Pakistani capital. The two tower blocks contained 75 apartments, officials said. REUTERS/Reuters TV

Earthquake Kills 3,000 Across South Asia


By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer
43 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border Saturday reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and flattened an apartment building. More than 3,000 people were killed in both nations, and a Pakistan army spokesman called the devastation "a national tragedy."


The toll included 250 girls who died when their school in northwestern Pakistan collapsed. Another 500 students were injured, said Ataullah Khan Wazir, police chief in the northwestern district of Mansehra.

In the capitals of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, buildings shook and walls swayed for about a minute, and panicked people ran from their homes and offices. Tremors continued for hours afterward. Communications throughout the region were cut.

About 1,000 people were killed in Pakistani Kashmir, said Sardar Mohammed Anwar, the top government official in the area. The army said 200 soldiers there were killed.

"This is my conservative guess, and the death toll could be much higher," Anwar told Pakistan's Aaj television station.

He said most homes in Muzaffarabad, the area's capital, were damaged, and schools and hospitals had collapsed.

At least 1,600 people died in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, said the province's top elected official, Akram Durani.

The U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site the quake hit at 8:50 a.m. local time and had a magnitude of 7.6. It was centered about 60 miles northeast of Islamabad in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir.

"The damage and casualties could be massive and it is a national tragedy," chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."

Damage was extensive in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan territory divided between India and Pakistan.

Officials in the Indian-controlled portion reported at least 250 people killed, including 20 soldiers who perished in a landslide. At least 850 people were injured and about 2,700 homes were destroyed or damaged across Jammu-Kashmir, said senior state official B.B. Vyas.

Army soldiers and local volunteers were rescuing people from under the debris of collapsed houses. Telephone lines were down. Bridges had developed cracks, but traffic was passing over them.

The USGS reported at least five aftershocks in Pakistan, with the strongest measuring magnitude 6.3 and located about 70 miles north of Islamabad.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ordered the military to extend "all-out help" to quake-hit areas and appealed to the nation to stay calm. Helicopters took troops to damaged areas, but landslides were hindering rescue efforts.

Musharraf, walking through the rubble in Islamabad, said the air force was deploying C-130 transport planes and 10 helicopters to devastated areas.

In a show of solidarity, India offered assistance and condolences to its longtime rival. The neighbors, which are engaged in a peace process, have fought three wars, including two over Kashmir, since independence from Britain in 1947.

"While parts of India have also suffered from this unexpected natural disaster, we are prepared to extend any assistance with rescue and relief which you may deem appropriate," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a message to Musharraf.

President Bush offered condolences and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was ready to help.

"At this difficult time, the United States stands with its friends in Pakistan and India, just as they stood with us and offered assistance after Hurricane Katrina," Rice said in a statement.

In eastern Afghanistan, an 11-year-old girl was crushed to death when a wall in her home collapsed, said police official Gafar Khan.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said the quake was felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but he had no reports of damage at bases around the country.

Maj. Richard McNorton, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said there were no reports of quake-related injuries among the more than 18,000 American forces in Afghanistan.

The quake brought down a 10-story apartment building in Islamabad and dozens of people were feared trapped in the rubble. Rescuers pulled out at least 20 injured people. Some residents were Westerners, a building employee said.

A man named Rehmatullah who lived nearby said he saw dust from the buckled building from his bathroom window.

"I rushed down, and for some time you could not see anything because of the dust. Then we began to look for people in the rubble," he said. "We pulled out one man by cutting off his legs."

"It was like hell," said Nauman Ali, who lived in a nearby top-floor apartment. "It was terrible. I was tossed up in my bed and the ceiling fan struck against the roof."

Aided by two large cranes, hundreds of police and soldiers helped remove chunks of concrete, one of which was splattered with blood. One rescue worker said he heard faint cries from people trapped in the rubble.

In Abbotabad, north of Islamabad, dozens of quake victims and other patients, some hooked up to intravenous drips, lay on the lawn of the city hospital after officials said aftershocks made it unsafe to stay inside. Hospital staff used loudspeakers to ask the public for food and other relief supplies.

One of the injured was 8-year-old Qadeer, whose father, a farmer named Jehangir, said the only buildings left standing in their village were a mosque and a school. Qadeer lay unconscious, his right leg heavily bandaged.

Sultan said the worst-hit areas were in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, including Muzaffarabad, the regional capital, and the towns of Bagh and Rawalakot. The districts of Batagram, Balakot, Mansehra, Abbottabad and Patan in northwestern Pakistan also suffered serious damage, he said.

Dozens of homes, schools, mosques and government offices were damaged, and hundreds of injured people were taken to hospitals.

In India's portion of Kashmir, two main highways were closed because of landslides triggered by the quake, and relief material was being flown to some areas, said Vijay Bakaya, Jammu-Kashmir state's chief secretary.

At least 400 tents were flown by helicopter to Uri and Tangdar to provide temporary shelter in the freezing Himalayan foothills, officials said. Teams of doctors and Red Cross volunteers were traveling by road and on foot to remote mountainous areas, Bakaya said.

All hospitals in the state have been put on alert and medical staff recalled, he said.

Power has been restored to hospitals, but telephone, water and electricity supplies were still disrupted across much of the state.

"Our first priority is to help affected families, deliver relief and assess the loss so that further help can be provided," Bakaya said.

In Kunzru village, near Srinagar, almost the entire village of 200 homes was flattened.

"The floor started shaking, and everything turned upside down," villager Ghulam Mohi-udin Khan said from his hospital bed, where he was being treated for a fractured leg.

His wife lay on an adjacent cot, her head in bandages from a head wound caused by falling masonry as their house collapsed.

Many Kunzru residents sat in the open fields waiting for relief to reach them.

The temblor also was felt near India's capital.

"It was so strong that I saw buildings swaying. It was terrifying," said Hari Singh, a guard in an apartment complex in a suburb of New Delhi. Hundreds of residents raced down from their apartments after their furniture started shaking.

The quake also jolted parts of Bangladesh, but no casualties or damages were reported.


Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.

Looting Breaks Out in Wake of Deadly Quake

By SADAQAT JAN, Associated Press Writer
14 minutes ago

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Shopkeepers clashed with looters Monday, and hungry families huddled under tents while waiting for relief supplies after Pakistan's worst earthquake razed entire villages and buried roads in rubble. Death toll estimates ranged from 20,000 to 30,000.

British rescuers on Monday unearthed a man trapped in rubble for 54 hours.

Eight U.S. military helicopters from Afghanistan arrived in Islamabad with provisions, and Washington pledged up to $50 million in relief and reconstruction aid, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said.

"The magnitude of this disaster is utterly overwhelming," Crocker said. "We have under way the beginning of a very major relief effort."

The United Nations said more than 2.5 million people were left homeless by Saturday's monster 7.6-magnitude quake, and doctors warned of an outbreak of disease unless more relief arrives soon.

With landslides blocking roads to many of the worst-hit areas, Pakistan's army was flying food, water and medicine into the disaster zone. International relief efforts cranked into action, and an American plane full of relief supplies landed at an air base near Pakistan's capital on Monday.

Most of the dead were in Pakistan's mountainous north. India reported more than 800 deaths; Afghanistan reported four.

In the shattered streets of Muzaffarabad, where at least 11,000 people died, an Associated Press reporter saw shopkeepers scuffle with people trying to break into businesses. They beat each other with sticks and threw stones, and some people suffered head wounds. No police were nearby.

Residents of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's portion of divided Kashmir, said looters also targeted deserted homes. Survivors lacked food and water, and there was little sign of any official coordination of relief in the devastated city of 600,000.

An eight-member team of British rescuers using a sniffer dog, drills, chain saws and crowbars pulled a 20-year-old tailor from the rubble on Monday afternoon, 54 hours after a two-story building collapsed over him and dozens of others.

The man, Tariq, was wide-eyed and covered in dust when he emerged, and he begged for water.

"I haven't eaten in three days, but I'm not hungry," said Tariq, who suffered a leg injury and was carried away on a door serving as a stretcher. He had been trapped beneath concrete and wooden beams, and a dead body lay on either side of him.

About 2,000 people huddled around campfires through the cold night on a soccer field on the city's university campus, where most buildings had collapsed and hundreds were feared buried in 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," rescue worker Uzair Khan said. "But we have not lost hope."

On the soccer field, Mohammed Ullah Khan, 50, said a few biscuits handed out by relief workers was all he had to eat for three days. His wife, who suffered a fractured leg, was wrapped in a yellow quilt beside him.

Their three-story home had collapsed in the quake. His family of 10 survived because they were on the top floor, which crashed to the ground. "My children are now on a hillside, under the open sky, with nothing to eat," he said.

A doctor, Iqbal Khan, said there was a serious risk of diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia if drinking water and other relief supplies do not arrive quickly. "These people feel as if there is no one to take care of them," he said.

The city had no electricity, and people collected water from a mountain stream. Shops and the city's military hospital had collapsed.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said the earthquake was the country's worst on record and appealed for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote areas.

President Bush on Sunday promised cash and said he had told Musharraf "we want to help in any way we can."

U.S. forces in Afghanistan prepared to send five Chinook transport helicopters and three Blackhawk helicopters to Pakistan on Monday to help ferry relief supplies.

"Pakistan is one of our closest allies in the war on terror and we want to help them in this time of crisis," said Sgt. Marina Evans, a U.S. military spokeswoman in Kabul. "The terrorists make us out as the infidels, but this is not true, and we hope this mission will show that."

India, a longtime rival of Pakistan, offered help in a gesture of cooperation. The nuclear-armed neighbors have been pursuing peace after fighting three wars since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over the Kashmir region.

Other international aid, including emergency rescue workers, began to flow in. Planes arrived from Turkey, Britain, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. Russia, China and Germany also offered assistance.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said his country's death toll was 19,396 and was expected to rise.

Senior officials in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir put the death toll much higher. The top elected official in the region, Sardar Sikandar Hayat, said that more than 25,000 people had died there with "countless" injured. Tariq Mahmood, the province's communications minister, put the toll at over 30,000.

Troops "have not started relief work in remote villages where people are still buried in the rubble, and in some areas nobody is present to organize funerals for the dead," Mahmood said.

The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia, with damage spanning at least 250 miles, from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory.

In Geneva, the United Nations urgently appealed for donations, including for at least 200,000 winterized tents.

On the Indian side of the militarized Kashmir border — where at least 800 have died — hundreds of Kashmiris spent Sunday night outside in the cold after rumors of another temblor. Hundreds of mosques announced warnings of a further quake over loudspeakers; none was reported

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051010/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_quake

AP - Sat Oct 8, 5:49 AM ET
View of the collapsed 10-story apartment building after a severe earthquake jolted Islamabad, Pakistan, Saturday, Oct 8, 2005. A magnitude 7.6 earthquake rocked parts of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, injuring at least a dozen people and damaging dozens of homes and shops. Part of the 10-story apartment building collapsed in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, and dozens of people were feared trapped in the rubble. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

Quake Kills More Than 18,000 in South Asia

AP - 3 minutes ago
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A powerful earthquake flattened entire villages of mud-brick homes, triggered landslides and toppled a 10-story apartment building on Saturday, killing more than 18,000 people as it devastated a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/science/earthquakes_and_volcanoes

India Quake Survivors Complain of Slow Aid


By MATTHEW ROSENBERG, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 36 minutes ago

URI, India - Angry villagers blocked roads in earthquake-ravaged regions of Indian-controlled Kashmir on Sunday, complaining the government was too slow in getting rescue and aid efforts to them.

Hundreds were known dead from the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that rocked South Asia on Saturday and rescue workers and soldiers were still pulling bodies from wreckage in the frontier Tangdar region, 65 miles north of Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state.

While the worst of the quake's devastation came in neighboring Pakistan, where tens of thousands were reported dead, damage was severe in parts of Jammu-Kashmir.

Collapsed houses and shops line the streets in towns and villages nestled in Tangdar's deep valleys as well as in the towns of Uri, Punch and Srinagar. Hundreds of people were injured.

Most people spent the night in the open, lighting fires with wood pulled from fallen houses to keep warm in near-freezing temperatures.

Sonia Gandhi, head of India's governing political alliance, visited Uri on Sunday and talked with some of the injured in hospitals.

"We have come here to share your grief," she said.

Gandhi told reporters the immediate aim was to provide food and shelter, especially tents and blankets.

"The requirement is 40,000 blankets and tents so that those who have lost their houses get a shelter over their heads," she said.

The Indian army has flown in planeloads of medicine, food and drinking water to the worst-hit Baramulla district, said Jammu-Kashmir state's chief secretary, Vijay Bakaya. More than 1,000 tents were being distributed in remote villages flattened by the quake.

However, many people said they had received no help.

A crowd of some 200 people blocked the main road between Baramulla and Uri for about 45 minutes, demanding that journalists and soldiers with relief supplies go to their mountainside villages, which they said were being ignored.

"Everything is destroyed. The ground shook and took everything down," said Syad Hassan, pointing toward the peaks surrounding the valley road.

The quake killed at least 65 people in his home village of Namala and three neighboring hamlets, he said, but no aid had been provided to them.

"All the government people, the press people, they are just driving past," he said.

Kashmir's finance minister, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, said the government was doing its best.

"The quake caused a lot of damage to infrastructure and communication. And the weather also became bad, which hampered relief temporarily," he said, referring to heavy overnight rains.

Mud, debris and knee-high slush from landslides blocked roads, cutting off many remote villages.

Baig said the government had canceled vacations of officials, especially doctors, to bolster relief efforts.

"There might be some places where delays have occurred, but officials are also humans," he said.

Teams of doctors and Red Cross volunteers were traveling by road and on foot to remote areas in the mountains to provide emergency medical care, said Bakaya, the chief secretary.

The assurances made little difference to Farid Khan, a farmer in Jabla, a village about 70 miles north of Srinagar visited by an Associated Press correspondent.

"No one has come to help us," Khan said. "Yesterday, we buried 20 people in the village, including my five-year-old daughter. We don't know how many more people are lying under the debris."

Khan watched helplessly as his wife writhed in pain on a cot nearby, her ribs broken when their home collapsed.

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Survivors Sought in South Asia Earthquake

AP - 4 minutes ago
BALAKOT, Pakistan - Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake killed more than 20,000.

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AP - Sun Oct 9,10:18 AM ET
View of National bank which is destroyed by Saturday's heavy earthquake which jolts Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2005. Bodies lay in the streets and villagers pulled debris from collapsed schools and mud-brick homes with their bare hands on, desperate to find survivors from a huge earthquake that struck Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, killing more than 18,000 people. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

Desperate Pakistanis Wait for Quake Aid


AP - 15 minutes ago
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Desperate Pakistanis huddled against the cold and some looted food stores Monday as international aid still had not reached remote areas of mountainous Kashmir after a monster earthquake flattened villages, cut off power and water, and killed tens of thousands. Officials predict the death toll, now estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000, will climb and fear that more could die from exposure or disease with winter just six weeks away. The United Nations has said 2.5 million people near the Pakistan-India border need shelter.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/World/South_Asia_Earthquake

AP - Mon Oct 10, 5:10 PM ET
Rescue workers of the British 'RAPID UK Search and Rescue' team and local staff search for a boy and a woman in the debris of Margala Towers in Islamabad on Monday, Oct. 10, 2005. The two-years old boy and the woman was rescued alive by the rescue team out of the debris of the building after Saturday's earthquake. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Kashmiri Separatists Dispense Quake Aid

AP - 1 hour, 29 minutes ago
JULLA, India - Shaukat Khan hiked across a valley to collect food and supplies he thought were being handed out by authorities. Instead, he found what thousands of others discovered after the earthquake that shattered their villages: the help was coming from Kashmiri separatists on the Indian side of the disputed territory. "We are the ones who are here with blood, with food, with medicines ? the people can see that," said Yasin Malik, leader of the separatist Jammu and Kashmir and Liberation Front. It's an aid effort that has not gone unnoticed in a land sharply opposed to Indian rule amid a 15-year insurgency that has claimed more than 66,000 lives, mostly civilians

Mon Oct 10, 3:35 PM ET

Pro-independence leader of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, Yasin Malik, right, talks to the media as he proceeds for distributing relief at Prinjal village, India, Monday, October 10, 2005. Kashmiri separatists are dispensing aid in hope the quake tragedy will boost their cause. Although the separatists say they are only trying to help the needy, they admit, with satisfaction, that the tragedy could end up boosting their cause to wrest the Himalayan region from India. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

UNICEF Asks for $20 Million to Help Children Affected by Pakistani Earthquake


By VOA News
10 October 2005




The United Nations children's fund, UNICEF, has appealed for an initial $20 million to provide emergency relief to children and families affected by the Pakistan earthquake.

The agency says that almost one in every five people in the affected area is a child under the age five, and nearly half are younger than 18.

Many of the victims were schoolchildren just starting the day's lessons when the quake struck.


UNICEF's Executive Director Ann M. Veneman says the appeal means immediate action to save children's lives. She said needed assistance includes medical care, clean water, nutritional food for infants, clothing and shelter.

UNICEF says it has begun moving additional staff and supplies into Pakistan from its regional offices. It says that, in addition, it is providing logistics and supplies for the frontline Pakistani surgical teams being dropped by helicopters into the most remote areas.

http://www.voanews.com/english/search.cfm

Death Toll in Pakistan Up to Nearly 40,000

By ZARAR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago


MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - The death toll in Pakistan's devastating earthquake rose to nearly 40,000 on Saturday, while rain, snow and frigidly cold weather compounded the misery of millions of homeless victims.

Heavy rain began falling early Saturday in many quake-hit towns and snow fell in the surrounding mountains, disrupting efforts to help an estimated 2 million people lacking shelter ahead of the harsh Himalayan winter. Downpours earlier in the week had grounded helicopters and stopped trucks loaded with relief supplies.

Helicopter relief flights — which have been ferrying supplies into the quake zone and ferrying out the injured — were halted for about an hour and a half Saturday morning before being resumed, except to the northern town of Balakot where the weather was particularly bad. That left hundreds of injured, cold and terrified people waiting by the helipad, hoping for the weather to clear.

In desperately short supply were what was needed most: tents.

"We have begged for tents from relief workers but they say there are no more," said Rehamatullah, a 70-year-old man who hiked to Balakot from a nearby village, looking for supplies. "We're very worried as our families are staying in the open."

Meanwhile, Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said the death toll from the Oct. 8 quake had risen to 38,000 with 62,000 others injured. More than 1,350 other people have died in neighboring India.

The official toll, which previously stood at 25,000, rose sharply because more bodies have been pulled from the rubble in recent days, army officials said.

At 8:51 a.m., thousands of Muslims gathered at Islamabad's towering Faisal mosque for special prayers for the dead — exactly a week after the temblor.

Prayer leader Qari Nauman Ahmad urged people to donate what they could to quake victims and seek God's forgiveness, saying continuing aftershocks were a sign that God was not happy.

Early Saturday, a magnitude-5 aftershock struck the quake-hit zone, but there were no immediate reports of damage or further injury. There have been more than 500 aftershocks over the past week.

Rescue workers abandoned the official search Friday for survivors trapped in the rubble, though individual efforts continued, with an 18-month-old girl reportedly pulled out alive from the ruins of her home in the town of Balimang, in North-West Frontier Province.

Four helicopters, two from the International Red Cross and two from the Pakistan army, landed in the devastated Kashmiri city of Muzaffarabad on Saturday morning, and another army spokesman Maj. Farooq Nasir said the relief operation was on but could change with the weather.

"There are still some affected areas that need to be reached," Sardar Anwar Khan, president of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, told reporters in Muzaffarabad. "We desperately need more tents because the winter is on our heads."

More delays could be catastrophic. Seven days after the magnitude-7.6 quake, many outlying villages have still seen no aid. UNICEF warned that thousands of children could die from cold, malnutrition and disease.

Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general and emergency relief coordinator, said he feared bottlenecks of relief supplies.

"If we don't work together, we will become a disaster within a disaster," he said. He said it would take billions of dollars and "five to 10 years" to rebuild.

Overnight rains also prevented troops from getting relief to the three villages still cut off in Indian Kashmir, officials said Saturday.

Indian army soldiers on foot were trying to reach Taad, Shararat and Vayu — all at least 10,000 feet up in the Himalayas — said V.V. Vyas, a top provincial bureaucrat overseeing relief work.

A train carrying relief goods donated by neighboring India for the victims of earthquake in Pakistan arrived in the eastern city of Lahore late Friday — the latest gesture of friendship between the erstwhile enemies.

The aid included 12 tons of medicine, five tons of plastic sheets, 5,000 blankets and 370 tents. It was the second consignment of humanitarian aid from India, following relief goods sent earlier by plane.

Most of Pakistan's deaths were in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir.

The country's relief commissioner, Maj. Gen. Farooq Ahmad Khan, said Pakistan expected to get 2 million blankets and 100,000 large tents before the onset of winter. He said 200,000 houses had been destroyed.

The U.S. military has deployed 13 helicopters to Pakistan, and has begun dropping relief supplies by air from C-130 transport planes. Germany and Afghanistan have also contributed helicopters.

Dozens of countries have donated money and aid. The United Nations on Friday increased its emergency appeal to nearly $312 million. It said helicopters, heavy lifting equipment, winterized tents, field hospitals and medicine are still desperately needed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051015/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_quake

AP - Sat Oct 15,12:20 AM ET
This photo provided by the US Navy shows injured Pakistanis as they are transported to medical help aboard a U.S. Navy helicopter, Friday Oct. 14, 2005. In a move that could boost America's battered profile in the Islamic world, the U.S. military is due to send an additioinal two dozen helicopters in the days ahead. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised long-term aid during Pakistan's 'hour of need.' (AP Photo/ US Navy - Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Timothy Smith)

Quake Toll Jumps to Estimated 35,000

AP - 38 minutes ago
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Heavy rain and hail forced the cancellation of some relief flights to earthquake-stricken regions Tuesday and survivors scuffled over the badly needed food ? the first international aid to make it overland to this devastated city. Officials estimated that the death toll would surpass 35,000. In the latest of a series of remarkable rescues, emergency workers in the northern town of Balakot pulled a teenage boy from the rubble on Tuesday, 78 hours after Saturday's quake

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/World/South_Asia_Earthquake

AP - Tue Oct 11, 6:11 AM ET
A boy carries a case of bottled mineral water as he walks past bodies lying in the streets of the northern Pakistani town of Muzzafarabad, one of the towns that were hit by Saturday's earthquake, Tuesday Oct. 11, 2005. The government's official death toll remained at slightly over 20,000 people, but a senior army official who is close to the rescue operations, said that 'according to our assessment, the death toll is between 35,000 to 40,000 people.' (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Search for Survivors in Rubble Called Off


By ZARAR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 13 minutes ago

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Rescue workers abandoned the search Friday for survivors trapped in the rubble of last week's earthquake, though individual efforts continued, with an 18-month-old girl pulled out alive from the ruins of her home.

A top U.N. official warned that reconstruction of the devastated region will cost billions of dollars and take up to a decade, and the United Nations increased its appeal for quake aid to $312 million. Weather forecasters said rains that began at dawn Saturday could worsen and disrupt efforts to provide food and shelter to an estimated 2 million people ahead of the harsh Himalayan winter.

With Pakistan's death toll from the Oct. 8 earthquake estimated at more than 35,000, Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general and emergency relief coordinator, said the search-and-rescue phase was now over. "It's a cruel reality. But after a week, very few people survive," he said.

Still, a doctor, Mazhar Hussain, told Pakistan's GEO television and the British Broadcasting Corp. that his rescue team had pulled the toddler, unconscious but alive, from under the door of her collapsed house, which had protected her. Her mother and two brothers were found dead nearby, but her father survived.

"Her right hand is broken and she has a fracture in her left leg," he said on GEO, speaking from Balimang in the North-West Frontier Province, where the girl was found.

Egeland, who traveled to hard-hit areas, said he feared bottlenecks of relief supplies.

"If we don't work together, we will become a disaster within a disaster," he said. He said it would take billions of dollars and "five to 10 years" to rebuild.

With few survivors expected, the focus of the U.N. shifted to the relief operation.

The United Nations launched an appeal Tuesday for some $272 million for quake victims, but its chief humanitarian envoy Hansjoerg Strohmeyer said an additional $40 million was needed.

So far, he said, pledges for just over $50 million have been received, with $4.6 million turned into firm commitments or contributions.

The biggest donations to the U.N. appeal are $17 million from Britain, $10 million from Sweden and $8 million from Canada, he said.

President Bush pledged up to $50 million, and the U.S. Agency for International Development has already earmarked $10.8 million for the U.N. appeal, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations said. But the U.N. said this has not been reported yet to its financial tracking service.

Many countries, including the United States, have also made bilateral donations to Pakistan.

In Islamabad, police launched a criminal investigation into the collapse of a 10-story luxury residence that was the capital's only structure to fall in the magnitude-7.6 quake, killing at least 40 residents.

"We will arrest all those who didn't perform their duty well," said the city police chief, Sikandar Hayat. "They might be the builders, contractors or supervisors."

Most of Pakistan's deaths were in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, where snow has started to fall in some areas. India has reported more than 1,350 deaths in the portion of Kashmir it controls.

Rain began falling at dawn Saturday in the region and Mohammed Hanif, a senior meteorologist in Islamabad, said it would "definitely disrupt relief operations in earthquake-hit areas."

Earlier this week, rains and hailstorms grounded helicopters flying food and other supplies to devastated areas.

Many exhausted relief workers dealt with the added burden of fasting during the daytime hours for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Early Saturday, a magnitude-5 aftershock struck 78 miles north of Islamabad in the region worst hit by the initial quake, but there were no immediate reports of damage. There have been more than 500 aftershocks since the main quake.

"They're going to continue," warned Waverly Person, a seismologist with the U.S. National Earthquake Center in Colorado. "This was a big event."

Water and electricity were restored to parts of Muzaffarabad, a Kashmiri city of 600,000 in the heart of the quake zone. Authorities worked to bring power back to outlying villages.

The country's relief commissioner, Maj. Gen. Farooq Ahmad Khan, said Pakistan expected to get 2 million blankets and 100,000 large tents before the onset of winter. He said 200,000 houses had been destroyed.

UNICEF said the international relief effort must focus on helping children at risk of death from cold, malnutrition and disease. The U.N. agency said it was sending high protein bars, boots and sweaters for children, blankets, water containers, plastic tarpaulins, tents, medical supplies and blankets.

Pakistani military helicopters and choppers from other countries flew in and out of a sports stadium in Muzaffarabad, where a temporary hospital had been set up. The choppers ferried aid workers to isolated villages, including those in the Neelum and Jehlum valleys, and brought back hundreds of injured people.

Pakistan's information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, said helicopters from other nations had helped save 6,000 injured people by ferrying them to hospitals. On Friday, 45 helicopters flew a total of 80 sorties, he said.

The U.S. military has deployed 13 helicopters to Pakistan, and has begun dropping relief supplies by air from C-130s. It also prepared to send a 36-bed Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or MASH, from Germany, and a water purification crew.

Dozens of countries have donated money and aid.

Millions of Muslims thronged mosques across Pakistan on Friday, the Muslim sabbath, to offer prayers for those who died in the earthquake. Some clerics said the quake was a sign that God was unhappy with his people. About 1,500 worshippers gathered inside a damaged mosque in the center of Muzaffarabad.

"God, forgive us," said the cleric, Mulana Sazluddin Chishdi. "Help all those who are helping others in this hard time, and give the nation courage to bear this loss and take part in the reconstruction of this city."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051015/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_quake

Rains Halt Relief Flights in Quake Zone
AP - 2 hours, 21 minutes ago
BAGH, Pakistan - Torrential downpours halted relief flights Sunday into the Himalayan region of Kashmir, compounding the misery of some 2 million people left homeless by a massive earthquake last weekend. U.S. State Department official Geoffrey Krassy said many in the quake zone remain cut off from aid.

Girl Rescued From South Asia Quake Rubble


By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago

BAGH, Pakistan - Soldiers pulled a young girl alive from the rubble of her home Sunday, eight days after a mammoth earthquake killed tens of thousands of people and caused widespread damage in Pakistan's mountainous north and part of India.

The cheering report came as torrential rains halted relief flights into the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which was worst hit by the quake. A general warned that the cold and wet were likely to cause more deaths among the estimated 2 million people left homeless by the disaster.

The military said rescuers found the polio-stricken girl in a wrecked house in the village of Sanger near Balakot, a town in North West Frontier Province that was flattened.

"She is absolutely fine," said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the chief army spokesman. He said he did not know her age.

Two brothers of the girl, aged 7 and 9, arrived at an army camp carrying a 7-month-old sister and seeking help for the trapped girl. They reported their parents had been killed and then led soldiers to the home, Sultan said.

"They're the real heroes," he said. "They said their house is destroyed, their parents are dead and nobody is alive in their locality."

He said there was still hope, however remote, of finding survivors. The Red Cross previously said people can survive under rubble for nearly a week.

But Pakistan's relief commissioner, Maj. Gen. Farooq Ahmed Khan, voiced fears about the chill downpours that were making conditions even more miserable for quake survivors.

"There are bound to be casualties because of bad weather. How much, I don't know," Khan said at a news conference.

He said the confirmed casualty toll from the earthquake had risen to 39,422 dead and 65,038 injured. The number was expected to rise as relief teams discover more bodies in the rubble.

Khan said that 29,000 tents and 118,000 blankets had been distributed in the quake zone, but that 100,000 tents were needed. The army said medical supplies such as syringes, painkillers and antibiotics were also needed, but asked donors to stop sending fresh water because most affected areas had enough.

U.S. State Department official Geoffrey Krassy said many in the quake zone remained cut off from aid.

"About 20 percent of the populated areas have yet to be reached," said Krassy, who normally runs a drug-smuggling surveillance unit that monitors the Pakistan- Afghanistan border. The unit has been redeployed to help quake victims, Krassy told reporters in the capital, Islamabad.

The military said roads to the valleys of Jehlum, Neelum and Kaghan in Kashmir remained closed by landslides, and it could take several weeks to clear them. In some areas, Pakistani soldiers evacuated injured villagers by carrying them on their backs.

The military said a transport helicopter crashed in bad weather as it returned home overnight after dropping off relief workers in the town of Bagh. All six soldiers aboard were killed, said Sultan, the army spokesman. Bad weather or a technical malfunction were the suspected cause of the crash, he added.

Bagh is one of the areas hardest hit by the magnitude-7.6 quake that struck Oct. 8. Relief workers have not been able to provide enough temporary shelters for town residents, let alone for the refugees who have streamed in from the mountains seeking aid.

The problems of aiding quake victims have been exacerbated because many whose houses did survive have refused to go back inside, fearing aftershocks could bring down the weakened structures.

"My house is full of cracks, and I won't go inside," said Bagh resident Mumtaz Rathore, huddled under a plastic sheet with his wife and four children. "Look at me, I have to live out here with my children."

In the driving rain, soldiers scrambled to cover supplies that had been dropped off by helicopters in previous days.

"The medicines are the most important thing for us," said Maj. Ali Agha, directing the effort to save the supplies in Bagh.

The U.S. military said it had suspended its helicopter flights.

"Nobody's going out today," said Col. Mark McKearn, who is charge of American relief flight operations.

Likewise, the Chaklala Air Base in Rawalpindi was quiet Sunday, in contrast to the brisk activity a day earlier when helicopters loaded up with supplies and sped off for the earthquake zone.

Khan, the relief commissioner, said a few helicopters had resumed aid flights to devastated areas in the North West Frontier Province, but conditions remained too dangerous over Kashmir.

The weather only added to the suffering in devastated regions.

A doctor in Bagh, Sajid Hussain, waded Sunday through ankle-deep water wearing a pair of plastic sandals, green surgical scrubs rolled up to his knees. He was heading toward a truck doubling as his operating theater.

Pounding rain overnight flooded the field of the boys college where he had set up, and a layer of water covered the floor of the tent where several patients lay waiting for surgery.

"It has been a tragedy and now this rain has made everything so much more horrible for people," Hussain said.

But there were new signs that the tragedy is helping to bridge the divide between the two sides of Kashmir, a territory that India and Pakistan have fought two out of their three wars over since winning independence from Britain in 1947.

India's foreign ministry said it had received a request from Pakistan on Oct. 13 to fly helicopters in the peacetime no-fly zone.

Pakistan would provide advance information of any helicopter flights to the dozens of devastated villages close to the cease-fire line to prevent misunderstanding, said an Indian official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A 13-member team of doctors from the United States planned to fly to the affected area from Lahore on Sunday, but it was unclear whether they would be delayed by the weather, state news agency APP reported. The team, including Pakistani doctors practicing in the United States, was bringing tents, medicine and hospital equipment.

Temperatures dipped to 44 in Balakot, one of the worst-hit towns just outside of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in the country's northwest. High winds drove the rain, making the town a soaked nightmare for victims, while snow fell in nearby mountains.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz made it clear that shelter was the priority.

"We need tents, tents, tents and prefab housing," he told reporters.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051016/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_quake

AP - Sun Oct 16,11:08 AM ET
A Pakistani soldier stands next to a badly damaged building as a Kashmiri man passes by with his belongings in the city center of Muzaffarabad, northern Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005. Deteriorating weather is likely to cause more casualties among the cold and homeless survivors of the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people, the Pakistani military said Sunday. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

Pakistan Predicts Sharp Jump in Quake Toll
AP - 2 hours, 17 minutes ago
BALAKOT, Pakistan - Pakistani officials predicted Sunday that many more thousands of dead would be found in earthquake-ravaged Kashmir as heavy rains in the Himalayan region drenched homeless survivors in mud and misery.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

AP - Sun Oct 16,12:37 PM ET Pakistani earthquake survivors sit on the roof of their destroyed home in Balakot, Pakistan Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005. Heavy rain and cold temperatures brought mud and misery to hundreds of thousands of homeless earthquake survivors on Sunday, and Pakistan's disaster relief chief said deteriorating weather will likely push the death toll _ now at more than 39,000 _ even higher. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/World/South_Asia_Earthquake

Quake toll leaps past 53,000 in Pakistan: Kashmir leader

12 minutes ago

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AFP) - The death toll from South Asia's earthquake soared past 53,000 in Pakistan and could rise still far higher as relief workers struggle to reach survivors, the Pakistani Kashmir leader said.

"With all responsibility, I can say that not less than 40,000 are killed," Sikandar Hayat Khan, the prime minister of the Pakistani side of the divided Himalayan region, told AFP on Sunday.

"There are still cities which are not cleared of debris and the death toll could go to 70,000 or 80,000. It is the worst tragedy in our history," he said.

It was a drastic jump from the last government figures that said more than 25,000 people died on the Pakistani side of Kashmir from the brutal October 8 earthquake.

Pakistan's central government had earlier said that more than 13,000 people were killed in North West Frontier Province.

The earthquake also ravaged the Indian side of divided Kashmir, killing 1,329 people there, according to Indian police.

The Pakistani Kashmir leader said that many of the freshly reported casualties were near the Line of Control, the ceasefire line that is the de facto border in the bitterly disputed Himalayan region.

"Some areas along the Line of Control and the areas where the snow is falling there is still debris. Helicopters have not reached there," he said.

But he said the military was doing its best in conditions that some relief workers have said are the most difficult they have ever encountered in a natural disaster.

"We have not been able to clear the debris. But the army is doing its maximum. They are picking out the areas. They are providing relief and help to the affected people," he said.

But relief workers have warned that thousands of people risk death within days unless help -- particularly tents to shield from the imminent winter -- comes immediately.

Nearly all helicopters were grounded Sunday on both sides of Kashmir after heavy rain and clouds.

A growing number of political leaders in the two sectors of Kashmir have called for an unprecedented opening of the Line of Control to speed up relief operations for the catastrophe.

So far four countries -- the United States, Germany, Japan and impoverished neighbor Afghanistan -- have responded to Pakistan's request for helicopters but the Japanese choppers are not yet in operation, officials said.

Some 3.3 million have been left homeless in Pakistan, and officials and aid agencies warn that many will not receive help before winter closes in on the rugged Himalayan region and leaves mountain villages completely stranded.

"It's a logistical nightmare," said Alain Pasche, coordinator of UN relief operations in Muzaffarabad, the ravaged capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

"Especially so in the little villages and for the people who are coming into Muzaffarabad. The situation is catastrophic here," he told AFP.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051017/wl_sthasia_afp/quakesasiapakistantoll_051017050633;_ylt=ArDzXiN9U70ryfuPmBeIfULGe50v;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

AFP - Mon Oct 17, 1:06 AM ET
The death toll from South Asia's earthquake soared past 53,000 in Pakistan and could rise still far higher as relief workers struggle to reach survivors, Pakistani Kashmir leader Sikandar Hayat Khan has said.(AFP/Saeed Khan)

Death Toll in Asian Quake Soars to 79,000
AP - Wed Oct 19, 4:32 PM ET
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Two strong aftershocks from South Asia's deadly earthquake shook the devastated region Wednesday, unleashing landslides and setting off another wave of panic among survivors of the Oct. 8 disaster. A new tally from regional officials pushed the death toll to 79,000. The new toll would make the quake one of the deadliest in modern times

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/south_asia_earthquake

AFP - Wed Oct 19, 6:22 PM ET
A young victim of the earthquake sits in the ruins of his house in Dheri Muzammil Shah in the mountains in the north of the country. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan made a dramatic appeal for world assistance to Pakistan to prevent a second massive wave of deaths in the wake of the recent devastating earthquake.(AFP/Eric Feferberg)

Tetanus kills five as Pakistan quake wounds fester

Fri Oct 21, 3:16 PM ET


BALAKOT, Pakistan (AFP) - Five people have died from tetanus in the aftermath of Pakistan's devastating earthquake and 42 other cases are being treated, the health ministry said.

Pakistani and international aid workers have launched a massive campaign to vaccinate millions of people who survived the disaster but whose wounds could become infected, it said.

"Five deaths from tetanus have been reported" among people who were evacuated from devastated northern Pakistan and Kashmir to hospitals in the capital Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi, health secretary Anwar Mahmood said.

"We are treating another 42 tetanus cases and they might increase. People who have been recovered late are developing it," added Mahmood.

In the ruined northern city of Balakot, battalion commander Colonel Saeed Iqbal said the World Heath Organisation had informed him of "cases of diarrhoea and a few cases of tetanus".

Pakistan had a stock of 4,000 doses of anti-tetanus globalin, an expensive medicine used to cure patients who have caught the disease, the health ministry's Mahmood said.

A further 8,000 are coming on Saturday, including 4,000 from neighbouring India, he said.

Egypt had already sent 200,000 doses of anti-tetanus vaccine to prevent the disease, and a further 1.8 million doses were expected from other countries in the next few weeks, he added.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned that even the smallest untreated wounds were now turning serious for survivors two weeks after the disaster.

"If they are left for weeks with no proper treatment, these wounds are becoming more infectious, more necrotic," Krist Tierlinck, MSF emergency coordinator for the devastated Pakistani Kashmir town of Bagh.

"You are coming down to even a small case from the beginning of the relief effort is now really a bad case to operate because it took these people time to get to a proper health facility," he told reporters in Islamabad.

"Every case now left behind is becoming a very serious case now."