Publicité
Quake toll may reach 40,000
The US military in neighbouring Afghanistan said it was diverting eight helicopters being used in the war against Islamic militants to assist with emergency operations as offers of aid poured in from around the world. Relief workers had yet to reach many remote villages in the mountainous areas worst hit by Saturday’s quake, and officials said the number of dead was likely to climb far above the 20,000 already known to have died in Pakistan.
Officials in North West Frontier Province and Pakistani Kashmir say the final death toll could be close to 40,000. There was still no medical attention for many of the more than 40,000 injured by the quake which, at a magnitude of 7.6, was the strongest in South Asia for a century. Bodies were still under the ruins of many of the buildings and crushed cars stuck out from the mounds of rubble.
Thousands of residents slept out in the open – some on flat slabs of rubble beside ruined shops, many in their cars – shivering in autumn cold and showers, but at least safer from aftershocks than they would be indoors. A minaret of a mosque hung down the side of a wrecked building. A group of people pushed a body down a main street on a trolley past another lying beside the road, an upturned hand sticking out from under a blanket.
Many survivors have complained about the slow response of emergency services stretched by the worst natural disaster in Pakistan’s turbulent history since its formation in 1947 as a homeland for South Asia’s Muslims. “The people are helpless,” said Raja Iftikhar a newspaper reporter and resident of Muzaffarabad. “My house is completely destroyed. Two bodies are still there – my relatives.” With resources stretched beyond their limits, President Pervez Musharraf appealed for foreign aid to supply tents, blankets, transport helicopters and medicines.
Indian troops in bunkers on the border with Pakistan and villagers in the divided region of Kashmir were among almost 700 people killed in India by a deadly weekend earthquake, officials said on Sunday.
Saturday’s earthquake also killed at least 19,400 people in Pakistan. “Information is now coming in from far off areas,” one official said from the frontier Kupwara town.“We have recovered 258 bodies so far and 100 are wounded in Karnah town.”
Complaints of slow response</B>
The deaths in Karnah took the toll to 689 in Indian Kashmir, where many mud and stone houses were buried under landslides. Karnah lies close to the military ceasefire line dividing the two nations, 55 km from Muzaffarabad, the main city in Pakistan Kashmir which bore the brunt of the tremors. Saturday’s 7.6-magnitude quake was centred about 95 km northeast of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Around 300 people died in Uri, the last big town in India on the highway connecting the two sides of Kashmir, where hundreds of wood and stone houses caved in when the tremors struck.
Army officials said they lost 50 soldiers, some of them when bunkers close to the ceasefire line in the heavily militarised zone collapsed. As many as 50 civilians engaged by the security forces were also killed.Rescuers continued to scour the rubble in frontier villages of Indian Kashmir for survivors. Relief workers had to trek many kilometres to reach remote villages, rendered more inaccessible due to quake-triggered landslides. “The search operations are on. Maybe there are more dead bodies under the debris,” the top bureaucrat of Jammu and Kashmir state, Vijay Bakaya, told Reuters on Sunday.
The border areas of Uri, Kupwara and Baramulla in Indian Kashmir were worst hit, with many houses buried under landslides and others developing cracks. “Some of the places in Uri and Tangdhar areas are virtually flattened. Our rescue teams reached these places late in the night,” Bakaya said. Army teams restored traffic on a key 300-km stretch of high.
 |
<B>World mobilisation for more rescue teams and aid</B>
World leaders stepped up efforts to help earthquake-battered Pakistan yesterday, dispatching more rescue teams, deploying helicopters and pledging further aid as the death toll from the disaster topped more than 20,000.
An eight-member UN team had begun coordinating the relief effort in the hardest hit areas, said a spokeswoman for the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and teams from Turkey, China, Britain and Germany were on the ground. The greatest need after the devastation wreaked by the 7.6 magnitude quake was for field hospitals, water purification and blankets, the spokeswoman said. “The logistical problems will be big. We are going to need more helicopters for example.”
US President George W. Bush telephoned Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whom he counts as a key ally in the US-led war against terrorism, to offer American helicopters and emergency aid and funding. “We’re moving eight choppers over. One of the biggest concerns for the government of Pakistan is not enough airlift capacity to get into some of the rural areas where people are suffering,” Bush told reporters in Washington. “My thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this horrible tragedy,” said Bush, echoing an outpouring of sympathy from across the world.
Australia, Japan, Russia, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia were among others dispatching help, as the official death toll in Pakistan jumped in the past 24 hours from less than 2,000 to more than 20,000, triggering urgency over relief efforts. The quake, South Asia’s strongest for 100 years, also killed more than 550 people in India and at least one in Afghanistan.
UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) executive director Ann Veneman said children made up half the population of the quake-affected areas and would be vulnerable to hunger, cold, illness and trauma. UNICEF said it had begun moving blankets, clothing, tents, medical supplies, food for infants and water purification tablets from a Karachi warehouse to quake-hit areas.
Children vulnerable</B>
The World Bank said it was ready to provide $20 million to Pakistan to deal with damage and the European Commission said it had earmarked an initial 3.6 million euros ($4.4 million) for medical services, shelter, food, drinking water and sanitation. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh phoned Musharraf to offer help with relief and rescue work – another sign of easing tensions between the nuclear-armed countries, once arch-rivals. An Indian Foreign Ministry official said Musharraf thanked Singh and would get back to him if Pakistan needed any help. The two countries would stay in regular contact, the official said.
China’s state news agency said the country had sent Pakistan a rescue team with search dogs and equipment, while the Dutch news agency ANP said the Netherlands had offered 1 million euros ($1.22 million) in aid and a rescue team. Germany’s Foreign Ministry said it had also made 1 million euros available from its humanitarian aid fund and was prepared to give more cash if needed. Australia said it had given $379,000 in immediate help to the three quake-hit countries and British officials said a second search and rescue team had arrived in Pakistan on Sunday.
Queen Elizabeth, head of the Commonwealth, of which Pakistan and India are members, expressed her “heartfelt sympathy”. Japan, experienced in dealing with quakes of its own, said it was sending relief workers and $220,600 worth of goods such as blankets and tents.
Turkey, another quake-prone nation, said it had sent two more military planes with doctors, rescuers and aid to Pakistan on Sunday.
<B>Ralph GOWLING</B>
Publicité
Publicité
Les plus récents
