Kashmir quake toll nears 40,000; rain hits relief

By David Fox

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan raised the
death toll from the Kashmir earthquake to 38,000 on Saturday
and said it could go higher after one of the most devastating
earthquakes to hit South Asia in recorded history.

One week after the disaster the jump in the toll from
around 25,000 came with confirmation of more fatalities from
remote mountain valleys and the town of Balakot.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he was unsure
whether army rescuers had reached all affected areas and he
expected more bodies could be found once routes into the Jhelum
and Neelum valleys were cleared of landslides.

“I think it is going to rise,” President Pervez Musharraf
told a news conference after his aides released the latest
official toll. Pakistani Kashmir and North West Frontier
Province bore the brunt of the earthquake one week ago.

Relief flights in and out of Muzaffarabad, the capital of
Pakistani Kashmir, were severely disrupted on Saturday by rain
and only a few helicopters managed to take off from a makeshift
landing pad in a sports field.

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.

PRAYERS

Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over
Kashmir since winning independence from Britain in 1947, and on
the Indian side of the ceasefire line dividing the disputed
region 1,300 people were confirmed dead.

Some 3,000 Muslims gathered in Pakistan’s largest mosque,
Shah Faisal in Islamabad, for prayers exactly one week after
the quake just before 9 a.m. (0400 GMT) on October 8.

“Oh Allah give courage to those who survived this disaster
to endure this hardship,” the cleric prayed, his voice breaking
with sobs as he called Pakistanis who died in the quake
martyrs.

The 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck just outside
Muzaffarabad, a city of 70,000 people 100 km (62 miles)
northeast of Islamabad, at the foothills of the Himalayas,
where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.

The new death toll puts it on the same scale as the
earthquake that almost destroyed the Pakistani city of Quetta
in 1935.

Between 30,000 and 60,000 people are estimated to have died
in the Quetta quake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A
earthquake in Bam, Iran, in 2003 killed 31,000 people.

The main concern as relief operations moved from rescue to
rehabilitation was to provide shelter.

The United Nations estimates that more than a million have
been made homeless — local authorities put the figure at up to
2.5 million — and winter is approaching rapidly.

“TENTS, TENTS, TENTS”

“The number one priority is shelter,” Prime Minister
Shaukat Aziz told a news conference. “We need tents, tents,
tents.”

U.N. chief emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland said
three times as many helicopters were needed to deliver relief.

“This is a very major earthquake but it is … aggravated a
thousand times by the topography,” he told Reuters. “An
earthquake is bad anywhere, in the Himalayas it becomes much
worse.”

About $500 million in overseas aid has been pledged and
more than $50 million has been raised domestically, while the
United Nations increased its appeal for Pakistan to over $300
million.

Aziz said the damage was estimated at $5 billion and the
United Nations says recovery could take up to ten years.

In the absence of organised camps, tent cities sprung up in
Muzaffarabad made up of plastic awnings, old signboards and a
few real tents.

Refugees burn wood from the rubble still wet from the rain,
plastic bags and bottles or even donated clothing — whatever
they can find to keep warm and cook.

Forecasters said isolated thunderstorms followed by a cold
snap that will bring night-time temperatures to as low as three
degrees Centigrade (37 degrees Fahrenheit) at the weekend.

“It is very difficult. My children are crying all the
time,” said Nasreen Ikram, her daughter by her side chanting
softly “Allah, Allah” (God).

The smell of burning plastic hung in the air of Ikram’s
camp, housing some 2,000 people, along with the stench of dead
bodies still entombed in rubble.

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

Musharraf said rescue work would continue, although experts
suggest it would be a miracle if anyone survived for eight
days.

British rescuers continued their search at Islamabad’s
Margala Towers apartment block, the capital’s only significant
damage, where a Swedish woman and three children and a Spanish
man are among the 30 missing.

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

(For more news about emergency relief visit Reuters
AlertNet http://www.alertnet.org email: alertnet@reuters.com;
+44 207 542 2432)