2.5 million homeless as death toll reaches 40,000

UP to 40,000 people are now feared dead and 2.5 million are homeless after Pakistan’s worst earthquake razed entire villages and buried roads in rubble.

Shopkeepers clashed with looters yesterday and hungry families huddled under tents while waiting for relief supplies in freezing cold.

British rescuers yesterday unearthed a man trapped in rubble for 54 hours, while residents, using their bare hands, freed two girls buried in a collapsed school for about 48 hours.

Setting aside decades-old rivalries, Pakistan said it would accept earthquake aid from India and a top rebel commander reportedly ordered the suspension of violence in earthquake-hit areas of Indian Kashmir. Authorities in New Delhi promised delivery "on a very urgent basis".

The Irish Government yesterday pledged a further 2 million to Pakistan and surrounding countries to help rescue efforts in the region. The latest announcement is in addition to an initial 1m donated on Saturday in the wake of the 7.6-magnitude quake.

Eight US military helicopters from Afghanistan arrived in Islamabad with provisions, and Washington pledged up to $50m (€41m) in relief and reconstruction aid, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker said.

"The magnitude of this disaster is utterly overwhelming," Crocker said. "We have under way the beginning of a very major relief effort."

The United Nations said more than 2.5 million people were left homeless by Saturday's quake, and doctors warned of an outbreak of disease unless more relief arrives soon.

With landslides blocking roads to many of the worst-hit areas, Pakistan's army was flying food, water and medicine into the disaster zone. International relief efforts cranked into action, and an American plane full of relief supplies landed at an air base near Pakistan's capital yesterday.

Most of the dead were in Pakistan's mountainous north. India reported at least 865 deaths, but Home Secretary VK Duggal said it was not expected to rise much higher; Afghanistan reported four.

Pakistan set aside politics and said it would accept relief aid from its rival India backing off from earlier refusals.

In another apparent gesture of good will, the chief commander in the largest Kashmiri rebel group, the Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen, reportedly ordered a suspension of violence in devastated areas of the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

Residents of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's portion of divided Kashmir, said looters also targeted deserted homes. Survivors lacked food and water, and there was little sign of any official coordination of relief in the devastated city of 600,000.

"Bodies are scattered in the city," said Masood-ur Rehman, the assistant commissioner of the city. "We are helpless."