Death Toll Now 30,000 in South Asia Quake

[BettorsChat]

By SADAQAT JAN, Associated Press Writer

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 30,000 people in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir alone.

"I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.

Saturday's magnitude-7.6 quake also struck India and Afghanistan, which reported hundreds dead.

Pakistan's army called the earthquake the country's worst-ever disaster and appealed for urgent help. Rival India, the United States, the United Nations, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Japan and Germany all offered assistance.

[BettorsChat]

Major quake ravages S. Asia

By Kim Barker Tribune foreign correspondent

A 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed thousands of people Saturday in India and Pakistan, flattening villages and sending people running from their homes in three countries.

The epicenter of the quake was in the remote and mountainous area of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, about 60 miles northeast of Islamabad, and reports of deaths and injuries were difficult to confirm as rescue workers scrambled into the stricken regions.

Early Sunday, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, told Pakistan's Geo TV that more than 18,000 people had been killed--17,000 of them in Pakistani Kashmir

Telephone lines were down, and mobile phone networks were flooded. Tremors persisted for hours after the first shock, which came at 8:50 a.m. Landslides wiped out entire villages and blocked roads, hindering rescue efforts. But the extent of the devastation was becoming clear by late Saturday: A school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah in northwestern Pakistan had collapsed, killing at least 250 girls, the police chief said.

A senior Pakistani army officer said 200 soldiers were killed by debris and landslides in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, The Associated Press reported. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

"One can see from the widespread damage that it has caused and the number of houses that have been damaged, that the number of dead or injured could be running into thousands," Sultan, the Pakistani army spokesman, told CNN after an aerial survey of the devastation.

In Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, crowds of people tried to rescue victims trapped under the rubble of a crushed 10-story apartment building.

A man named Rehmatullah, who uses only one name like many in Pakistan, said he saw dust from the destroyed 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."

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ordered the military to help in all quake-hit areas and appealed for calm. As of late Saturday, there were no reports of rioting or violence.

Musharraf, who walked through the rubble in Islamabad on Saturday, said the air force would send C-130 transport planes and 10 helicopters to devastated areas.

The worst-hit areas were near the disputed Kashmir border between Pakistan and India. Many of the villages on both sides of Kashmir are poor, filled with mud buildings not built to withstand a major earthquake. Video footage showed similar devastation in village after village, broken beige buildings that appeared bombed out.

Aid promised

Relief agencies immediately pledged aid. Catholic Relief Services sent an emergency aid team Saturday to Muzaffarabad, the regional capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

Jack Norman, the group's Pakistan representative, said it was tough to get to the area near the epicenter, which he described as "extremely mountainous, with narrow roads often blocked by slides."

Sardar Mohammed Anwar, the top government official in the area, told Pakistan's Aaj television station that his conservative guess was that 1,000 people were killed.

"The death toll could be much higher," said Anwar, adding that most homes in Muzaffarabad were damaged, and that schools and hospitals had collapsed.

In Pakistan's North-West Frontier province, the death toll was estimated at 1,600, said Akram Durani, the province's top elected official.

In India-controlled Kashmir, police said at least 250 people were killed. The border village of Uri reportedly was leveled, and more than 100 bodies had been pulled out of the village, alone, officials said. A nearby Indian army bunker also collapsed in the quake, killing 26 soldiers.

In Washington, President Bush offered condolences, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was ready to help, The Associated Press reported.

"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.

Pakistan flew 400 tents by helicopter to Uri and another village to provide shelter in the freezing Himalayan foothills, officials said. Medical and aid teams traveled by road and on foot to remote mountainous areas.

Disputed region

Kashmir has long been one of the world's major flash points, the disputed region that both Pakistan and India have claimed since the countries won independence from Britain in 1947.

On Saturday, officials from both countries talked to each other about the disaster, and India's prime minister offered to help harder-hit Pakistan, Indian media reported.

Pakistan's Aziz told the British Broadcasting Corp. that Pakistan and India had not had any official conversations about rescue efforts.

"If there is need to coordinate something, the channels are open on both sides," he said.

The temblor was felt for hundreds of miles, sending doctors running out of operating rooms in Kabul, Afghanistan, and men jumping free from construction sites. Two people reportedly died in Afghanistan, including a girl killed by the wall of her house in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

"I saw the traffic posts shaking," said Mohammad Fahim Ramaki, 30, who had just stepped off a bus in Kabul. "Suddenly, I saw people running everywhere. They wanted to get out of the buildings, they tried to come to the street."

Buildings were swaying as far away as New Delhi, India's capital. Vandana Murthy said everyone fled from her apartment building.

"Everyone was running," Murthy said. "Most people came as they were, looking quite bad. It was really quite scary."

Tribune news services contributed to this report.

[BettorsChat]

Aftershock Hits Pakistan As Aid Pours In

By SADAQAT JAN, Associated Press Writer
59 minutes ago

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - As rescue efforts gave way to aid relief, a strong aftershock shook Pakistan early Thursday morning, five days after an earthquake killed tens of thousands and left millions homeless. Still, miracles emerged amid the misery: A Russian team rescued a 5-year-old girl trapped for nearly 100 hours under the rubble of her family home.

It was not immediately clear if the 5.6-magnitude aftershock caused any damage. The U.S. Geological Survey said the aftershock was centered about 85 miles northeast of Islamabad.

Trucks and helicopters with aid from dozens of countries choked roads up to the crumbling towns of the Himalayan region of Kashmir, but the hungry and homeless in hard-hit areas remained isolated days after the temblor.

"No country is ready for such a disaster," said President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a nationally televised address, acknowledging delays in his government response but saying that relief operations were now fully under way.

The 7.6-magnitude quake Saturday demolished whole towns, mostly in Kashmir, divided by a cease-fire line between Indian and Pakistani territories. The death toll was believed to be more than 35,000, with tens of thousands injured.

U.S., Pakistani, German and Afghan helicopters delivered tents, blankets and medical equipment and brought back dozens of badly injured people on each return flight. The choppers flew in clear skies after stormy weather forced the suspension of flights Tuesday.

"The problem we are seeing right now is that there's so many injured Pakistanis, we just can't take back everyone. We are limited for space," U.S. military spokesman Col. James Yonts said at a base near Islamabad.

At a landing zone in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, doctors selected only the most severely injured for evacuation.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Islamabad, where Pakistani leaders appealed for tents, water, blankets and clearing equipment.

"We will be with you in your hour of need. We will be with you not just today but also tomorrow," Rice said at a news conference with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Aziz said small aircraft were able to land at the airport in Muzaffarabad, but C-130 transport planes still were only able to airdrop equipment and supplies.

The United Nations estimated some 4 million people were affected, including 2 million who lost homes, and warned that measles, cholera and other diseases could break out. Some 50,000 Pakistani troops joined the relief effort.

Washington has pledged $50 million in relief aid to Pakistan, a key ally in its fight against terror. On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced an additional $17.5 million, on top of $3.5 million already promised.

The World Bank said it would double its initial commitment of aid to Pakistan to $40 million and said the long-term amount could run to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Relief supplies poured in from about 30 countries — including 25 tons of tents, medical supplies and food from longtime rival India. The Indian effort was not without a glitch, however, as a plane from New Delhi was forced to turn around because Pakistan said there was no room to land. The plane got new clearance and arrived in Islamabad before dawn.

Most of the quake's victims were in Pakistan, with more than 1,400 people killed in Indian Kashmir. New Delhi's aid offer and Pakistan's acceptance reflect warming relations between the nuclear-armed rivals, who fought two of their three wars over Kashmir and embarked on a peace process last year.

In Muzaffarabad, desperate residents mobbed trucks arriving with food and water, grabbing whatever they could and pushing the weak aside.

Rescue workers fanned out from the town by helicopter to remote parts of Kashmir — including eight teams from the British International Rescue Corps, which has found 16 survivors since arriving in the quake zone nearly three days ago.

"As time goes on, hope will get less and less. But you always do get miracles," said Ray Gray, wearing a blue uniform and helmet as he prepared to board a chopper. "Even if we just find one person, the whole effort is worth it."

People can survive under rubble for up to seven days, but dwindling air supply, injuries and dehydration take their toll on those clinging to life.

Five-year-old Zarabe Shah lasted almost exactly four days until Russian rescuers with search dogs, listening devices and breath-detecting equipment pulled her out at 9 a.m. Wednesday and took her to a camp for homeless quake survivors.

"I want to drink," she whispered, her cropped hair caked with dust. An elderly man fed her tiny sips of water from a blue plastic bottle cap.

On Tuesday, Zarabe's neighbors recovered the bodies of her father and two sisters. Her mother and another two sisters survived Saturday's quake but gave up Zarabe for dead and left Muzaffarabad for a less-damaged city.

Held tight by her uncle, she described how she fell from the stairs when the quake struck. The stairwell shielded her from debris, and she survived without serious injury.

The Russian rescuers who saved Zarabe alternated between digging and removing heavy slabs of concrete, requesting silence from bystanders so they could get a better fix on the girl's location. One of their tools was a machine that detects carbon dioxide, a sign of breathing.

Some roads to the badly hit town of Bagh, southeast of Muzaffarabad, remained blocked because of landslides. Dozens of bodies lay on the roadsides, and residents appealed for heavy machinery to help them remove debris in hopes of finding survivors.

"We need food, we need water, we need medicine," said teacher Abdul Qayyum, standing near the rubble of his school.

Jan Vandemoortele, U.N. Resident Coordinator for Pakistan, said key roads into the quake zone that were blocked have been opened up.

"Relief material is moving in," Vandemoortele said in Islamabad. "It is getting there. Roads are open now. They were blocked until very recently. We have several trucks that are all loaded and on the road now."

Musharraf thanked all the countries for their assistance and made a point of mentioning India's help. "The Indian prime minister was very kind to ring me up and offer all possible assistance," he said.

Vandemoortele said there have been no reports of epidemics but that the area's health infrastructure has collapsed. He said three field hospitals had already been set up in Muzaffarabad and Bagh, and in the northern town of Mansehra. Three more would be ready soon, he said.

[frankb03]

Mother nature the past few years is real pissed at humans.

[griffey_mojo]

Frank-
I'm no tree humper but do ya blame her?

[jcindaville]

With 9-11 the sunami, hurricane Katrina, and Rita, the war in Iraq and Afganastan, and now this earth quake in Pakistan it is making me really worry about are these signs that the end of times are near. Call me mello dramatic or what you will; it is a little spooky when i think about it. Well time for Lost, that will help me not think about all that.

[weazel079]

Someday humans will completely destroy themselves as we are in process already. Wonder if humans will be around by the time the sun blows up.

[frankb03]

Frank-
I'm no tree humper but do ya blame her?

Mojo, I hear you. We've taken so much from mother earth. Payback is a bitch.

[frankb03]

Well time for Lost, that will help me not think about all that.

I tried watching Lost last season. I still record it on my TIVO. I can't seem to get into it. It too far fetched for my taste.