Aid began to flood into Pakistan on Monday as the death toll from the weekend’s earthquake continued to spiral and anger over the slow pace of the recovery effort boiled over in remote parts of Kashmir, which have been without supplies for days.
Consignments of food, medical supplies, tents and sniffer dogs were landed in Islamabad as the authorities struggled to get relief to devastated areas. Key highways have been blocked by landslides and many communities have been without water and electricity for days.
In Pakistan, officials said the death toll would reach 40Â 000 by the end of the week. In Indian-administered Kashmir, the number of dead had passed 800, with more than 10Â 000 people still missing in the mountainous region in Kupwara district, near the India-Pakistan frontier.
The United States, which in the first hours of the crisis had apparently offered $100Â 000, raised its donation to $50-million when the scale of the disaster became apparent. Another significant American contribution is the diversion from Afghanistan of eight helicopters to airlift survivors from the disaster zone. The helicopters arrived from Kabul on Monday and the gesture will score a public relations coup for the US in Pakistan.
”The terrorists make us out as the infidels, but this is not true and we hope this mission will show that,” US military spokesperson Sergeant Marina Evans told The Associated Press.
Britain has pledged $2-million-worth of assistance, including nine tonnes of relief supplies. Aid agencies said they were overwhelmed by the public’s response to their appeals and the Pakistani diaspora had begun collecting substantial sums to send back home. The Muslim Council of Britain said it expected to raise more than $5-million over the next few weeks from collections at mosques.
With the reconstruction costs running into hundreds of millions of dollars, governments also began to pledge substantial help. On Monday night, Kuwait offered $100-million to rebuild the region’s cities.
In a rare sign of cross-border cooperation, India is sending tents, food and medicine and other aid for earthquake-hit areas in the Pakistani portion of Kashmir on a ”very urgent basis”. The neighbours, who have fought three wars over Kashmir, have set aside their rivalry following the earthquake.
But people are still forced to dig with little more than their bare hands in an often vain attempt to release relatives and friends entombed in the rubble.
In Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, where more than 11Â 000 were killed, frustration turned into sporadic looting. Masood-ur Rehman, assistant commissioner of the city, said 90% of buildings, and all of its government and educational institutions, were destroyed.
”Bodies are scattered in the city,” he said. ”Ninety percent of victims are still buried under the debris. We are facing problems in the rescue operation as the roads are blocked. We are helpless. The city is out of order.”
A football pitch on Muzaffarabad’s university campus has been turned into a temporary camp for thousands who only have the heat of camp fires for the bitterly cold nights. With food scarce, little shelter and no communications, many relief organisations are warning that time is running out for thousands.
”I don’t think anybody is alive in this pile of rubble,” rescue worker Uzair Khan said. ”But we have not lost hope.”
With potentially millions homeless, many victims remain beyond help’s reach in remote villages in the foothills of the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountain ranges.
International rescue teams were continuing to arrive on Monday night, bringing specialist equipment to excavate the rubble and hospitals were being set up to cope with the injured.
In an upmarket suburb of Islamabad, where a 10-storey apartment block collapsed, a team of British experts and heavy diggers were brought in to try to get to anybody who might still be alive under the rubble.
”Time is short and we need to move quickly. We have the equipment and are confident that we can get more people out,” said Paul Wooster, of Rapid UK, who heads a team of 25 British experts in disaster recovery.
Mamoon Tariq Khan, whose mother and grandmother are believed to be under the crumpled concrete, said: ”They will die if they are not found soon. Either through lack of food or water or if they are injured because of an infection.” — Guardian Unlimited