Choppers bring relief to Pakistan

A HALT in heavy rains yesterday allowed helicopter relief flights to resume across Pakistan’s quake zone, but fresh landslides hampered efforts to move supplies by road.

Officials estimated the death toll could now be more than 54,000.

Pakistan said it was willing to accept an offer from India to send helicopters for earthquake relief operations, but without Indian pilots either military or commercial.

The countries have fought three wars since 1947, but India has sent relief aid to its neighbour.

"Pakistan was willing to accept helicopters from India if these were offered without pilots," the Foreign Ministry said.

"Given the obvious sensitivities, we could not accept involvement of Indian military on our side for relief operations."

India has sent three relief shipments to Pakistan, including 100 tons of high-protein bars, 10 tons each of medicine and plastic sheeting, as well as tents and blankets, the Indian Foreign Ministry said.

Eight international medical teams took off from Muzaffarabad to outlying villages, as fears grew for millions of survivors without healthcare and shelter in the isolated mountains of Kashmir.

US diplomat Geoffrey Krassy estimated that about one-fifth of populated areas had yet to be reached.

"There are serious patients with infected wounds and gangrene", said Sebastian Nowak of the International Committee of the Red Cross, after a team of its doctors landed in Chekar, about 40 miles east of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's part of the divided Himalayan region.

He said about 200 people in the town had not received any medical help, and landing choppers there was dangerous because desperate villagers were rushing into the landing area.

In the isolated Pakistani village of Kot Gallah, survivors like Malang Khan could only sit in the rubble of his home, and wait.

"No army soldier has come here to help us," said Khan, 45, whose teenage daughter was killed. "First we lost people in the quake, and now we will die because of cold and hunger."

Landslides have blocked the road to the village, and Abdul Ghafoor, 50, said it urgently needed tents, food and medicine. About 750 of its residents are homeless, and many are sick, some with broken bones. He said the earthquake killed about 40 people in the village, including his wife and four children, but bad weather could kill them all.

On the Indian side of Kashmir, conditions were grim yesterday. Torrential rain and snow turned roads into rivers of mud, stranding trucks loaded with relief supplies for the worst-affected Uri and Tangdhar areas, officials said.

Confirmation of a final toll will be difficult because many bodies are buried beneath rubble. UN officials said that, so far, they were adhering to the Pakistani government's confirmed casualty toll, which was 39,422. The UN estimates two million are homeless.