Quake toll may reach 54,000 as cold sets in

AT least 40,000 people in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir died in last week’s earthquake, a Pakistani official said yesterday.

That would raise the overall death toll in the disaster to more than 54,000.

The prime minister of Pakistan’s part of Kashmir, Sikandar Hayat Khan, estimated the toll in his region could be much higher because relief workers have not yet reached many affected areas, said his spokesman, Abdul Khaliq Wasi.

“The death toll is not less than 40,000,” Mr Wasi said.

However, he added that officials in Kashmir had not counted all the bodies, and the 40,000 figure was “a closest estimate”.

An additional 13,283 people have been confirmed dead in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, and India has reported 1,350 deaths in the part of divided Kashmir it controls.

Confirmation of a final death toll will be difficult because many bodies are buried beneath the rubble.

“The United Nations is still operating on the government’s official numbers,” said Andrew MacLeod, Humanitarian Affairs officer with the UN Coordination and Assessment Team.

“There are regions that still have not been reached, and the death toll is not final.”

Mr Khan said earlier that the confirmed casualty toll from the earthquake was 39,422 dead and 65,038 injured.

Deteriorating weather is likely to cause more casualties among the cold and homeless survivors of the magnitude-7.6 earthquake that struck the area touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan on October 8.

“There are bound to be casualties because of bad weather. How much, I don’t know,” said Major Gen Farooq Ahmed Khan, Pakistan’s relief commissioner.

Yesterday, torrential downpours halted airborne quake relief efforts in Kashmir, where the Pakistani military said one of its relief helicopters crashed in bad weather, killing all six people aboard.

Meanwhile, traumatised survivors are thronging to mosques and the few psychiatric wards as they try to grapple with the mental shocks of Kashmir’s devastating earthquake.

Specialists say that in addition to immediate medical attention, the living victims - suffering from symptoms ranging from convulsions to delirium, breathlessness and shivering - are in dire need of counselling and help.

“Their lives have been shattered and there is a great need for helping them overcome the trauma,” said Brian Heidel of the British aid group Save the Children.

Many have turned to faith for consolation. In Kashmir’s most revered Hazratbal shrine - which is believed to house a relic of Prophet Mohammad - devotees flock to the courtyard, their heads bowed in prayer.

Islamic scholar Qazi Altaf Ahmad says that religion is the last refuge when “every certainty in life seems to be vanishing. Quakes actually make you feel so.”

A local psychiatrist, Mushtaq Marghoob, agrees: “It is always difficult to accept sudden death or destruction. Religion can be a very effective tool in reconciling with fate.”

Scared and shocked survivors still fear to take shelter under roofs - which crushed many of their family members - despite freezing nights.

“My children don’t want to go near a roof. We are too scared to take a chance again,” said Mohammad Yunus in Shatlu village, 25 miles north of Srinagar.

Showkat Shahbaz, a taxi driver, said his wife has been so frightened since the quake that she “jumps up in fright every time the floor creeks when the kids run around the house.”

Dr Marghoob says that family support is important in overcoming the trauma.

“Immediately it is important that the affected people are not left alone. It is necessary that surviving family members remain together. Strangers, even trained specialists, cannot replace kin,” Dr Marghoob said.

Kashmiris already suffer from high levels of trauma due to the region’s ongoing separatist insurgency, which has killed over 66,000 people in 15 years of fighting. Ailments related to stress are common. Still, the region has few psychologists.

A lone 100-bed psychiatric diseases hospital in Srinagar has only four specialists and nine junior doctors to deal with 200 patients who go there everyday.

“We are not geared or equipped for treating mental diseases,” added Dr Shabir Qadiri, a psychiatrist working in Srinagar.