Heavy rain, hail hamper earthquake aid effort

HEAVY rain and hail forced the cancellation of some relief flights to earthquake-stricken regions yesterday and survivors scuffled over the badly needed food.

It was the first large-scale aid to make it overland to this devastated city.

The United Nations yesterday launched a €226 million appeal to provide immediate help to victims of the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that hit Pakistan and India, killing tens of thousands and leaving over two million homeless.

Officials estimated that the death toll would surpass 35,000.

In the latest of a series of remarkable rescues, emergency workers in the northern town of Balakot pulled a teenage boy from the rubble, 78 hours after Saturday’s quake.

Two survivors, a 55-year-old woman and her 75-year-old mother, also were pulled from the rubble of a 10-story apartment building in Islamabad, 80 hours after they were buried.

A French search team on Monday rescued at least five children buried in a collapsed school in the northern town of Balakot.

Bob McKerrow, coordinator of relief efforts for the International Federation of the Red Cross, told CNN that “you can still keep some hope” for survivors trapped for five to seven days, although he cautioned the cold and wet weather would also become a factor.

In Indian-controlled Kashmir, rescue workers yesterday found the bodies of 60 road workers in a bus that was buried in a landslide during the quake.

Earlier in the day, US military helicopters, diverted from neighbouring Afghanistan, helped ferry wounded from the wrecked city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-ruled Kashmir.

International rescue teams joined the search for finding survivors. Teams of Britons, Germans and Turks used high-tech cameras to scan under piles of concrete, steel and wood.

Thousands of civilian volunteers, some carrying picks and shovels on the shoulders, walked north towards quake-hit towns.

The worst-hit region was Kashmir, a divided Himalayan territory of about 10 million people claimed by both India and Pakistan.

Islamic rebels opposed to Indian rule of its part of the largely Muslim region have fought a 15-year insurgency that has claimed more than 66,000 lives.

Bad weather compounded the misery in the region, with heavy rain and hail forcing some helicopters loaded with food and medicine to cancel or delay their flights.

Late yesterday, a 5.1-magnitude quake rattled parts of south-western Pakistan, causing people to rush out of their homes in panic. No casualties were reported.