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Kashmiris wake to cold and storms a week after quake

Posted on: Saturday, 15 October 2005, 00:16 CDT

By Robert Birsel

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - A week after South Asia's strongest earthquake in 100 years, survivors woke to a cold and drizzly Saturday morning still uncertain how they would survive the coming winter without permanent shelter.

Dark clouds hung low over the foothills of the Himalayas, covering the capital of Pakistani Kashmir like a shroud, as thunder and lightning rolled through the valleys.

Thousands were due to gather in the country's largest mosque, Shah Faisal in Islamabad, for a special prayer session at the exact time of the quake. Prayer has special meaning during this holy month of Ramadan, which dictates fasting from dawn to dusk.

The 7.6 magnitude earthquake quake struck at 0852 (0352 GMT) on October 8 just outside this city of 70,000 people, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir at the foothills of the Himalayas, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.

Many villages in remote mountain valleys and several large towns in Pakistani Kashmir, neighboring North West Frontier Province and Indian Kashmir across the border were nearly leveled, roads were destroyed and blocked by landslides.

The official death tolls of more than 25,000 in northern Pakistan and 1,200 Indian Kashmir are expected to rise as the more remote areas are assessed. Some local officials and politicians say deaths in Pakistan could top 40,000.

The United Nations estimates the quake left more than a million people homeless and lacking even basic shelter and disrupted the lives of another three million.

In Muzzafarabad, makeshift tent cities have sprung up made up of a hodgepodge of plastic awnings, old signboards and a few real tents. The refugees burn wood from the rubble still wet from the rain, plastic bags and bottles or even some donated clothing -- whatever they can find to keep warm.

"It is very difficult. My children are crying all the time," said Nasreen Ikram.

With chances of finding anyone to rescue fading fast, some international rescue teams had begun to leave.

Thirty people, including foreigners, remain unaccounted for in the Margala Towers apartment block, the only significant damage in Islamabad, and British rescuers were continuing work in the hope of finding more people alive.

The government has denied the search for survivors has been called off elsewhere, but in the worst-hit parts of the quake zone, the focus was switching from trying to rescue anyone from the rubble to providing emergency shelter and food.

BAD WEATHER FORECAST

But further disruption and misery was expected at the weekend. The 48-hour weather forecast for the region was for isolated thunderstorms followed by a cold snap that will bring night-time temperatures to as low as three degrees Centigrade (37 degrees Fahrenheit).

Rain and hailstorms earlier in the week forced a temporary suspension of aid flights, and more rain is likely to trigger further landslides and hamper road movement of emergency aid.

Strong aftershocks have added fear to uncertainty about the future and sent nervous residents of ruined mountain towns running into streets in the middle of the night every night.

The U.S. Geological Survey has recorded 75 significant aftershocks in the week since the quake, including a 5 magnitude quake just before 1 a.m. on Saturday.

Meteorological officials said the seismic activity was likely to continue for months, maybe years.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of aid have been pledged and emergency supplies have been flown in from around the world, but United Nations' chief emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland called for a more urgent world aid response.

He said there was still an acute shortage of helicopters and about three times as many were needed.

"This is a very major earthquake but it's really aggravated a thousand times by the topography," he said. "An earthquake is bad anywhere, in the Himalayas it becomes much worse."

Mosques and private campaigns have encouraged Pakistanis to donate in an unprecedented outpouring of giving. More than $38 million has been raised in the country to supplement about $350 million in international aid pledges.

The aid effort has picked up steam in recent days after a difficult start due to a shortage of helicopters needed to reach remote mountain towns and roads blocked by landslides.

The army, under fire earlier in the week for what many quake victims complained was a slow response to the disaster, has been airdropping supplies to villages cut off from help in remote valleys in the Himalayan foothills.

Where valleys are too narrow and steep-sided for helicopters, mule-trains are being sent to carry in the food, blankets and tents people need to survive.

The dangerous work of clearing roads is slow and painstaking, with many cars and buses buried in landslides and new ones easily set off, threatening untouched villages below.

The tragedy has straddled the divide between Pakistani and Indian Kashmir that dates back to independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and over which Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars.

Pakistan has accepted Indian aid, but has declined an offer of helicopters.

Egeland said old enmities should be thrown out the window at times like this.

"What I want to see as an aid worker is massive relief efforts crossing all borders immediately when there are needs," he said. "Human suffering has no borders nor should our compassion or our relief time."

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom, Faisal Aziz and Zeeshan Haider in Islamabad)

Source: REUTERS

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