Frantic search for survivors
Saturday’s magnitude 7.6 earthquake wiped out entire villages, severed transport links and knocked out power and water supplies.
In dozens of villages, many cut off from rescuers by quake-induced landslides, relatives desperate to find their loved ones dug through rubble with their bare hands, and Pakistani officials said the death toll ranged between 20,000 and 30,000. In addition, India reported more than 600 dead, and Afghanistan said 250 were killed.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has been in contact with the heads of government of the countries affected by the disaster. Mr Ahern said Ireland would assist in whatever way possible with the international relief effort and he announced an initial donation of €1 million for the relief operation.
UNICEF Ireland is supplying immediate assistance to the government of Pakistan. UNICEF said the region, where one-fifth of the population is aged under age, was most affected and the death toll among young children could be very high.
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf said the earthquake was the country’s worst on record and appealed for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters, to reach remote areas. Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the American helicopters would be drawn from coalition military operations in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Rival India also offered assistance. Mr Aziz said the Pakistani death toll was 19,396 dead, and that it was expected to rise. The interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, said most of the deaths were in Pakistani Kashmir, and that 42,397 were injured. The worst-hit city was Pakistani Kashmir’s capital, Muzaffarabad, where 11,000 died, Mr Sherpao said. One official put the Kashmir death toll much higher.
“I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir,” Tariq Mahmood, communications minister for the Himalayan region, said.
Troops “have not started relief work in remote villages where people are still buried in the rubble, and in some areas nobody is present to organise funerals for the dead”, he said.
The quake was felt across a wide swathe of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-storey building collapsed. Residents in Muzaffarabad said they were facing food and gasoline shortages. The city of 600,000 had no water or electricity supply, and people collected water from a mountain stream.
“People are relying on local fruit, and they have little food to eat. I went out to get bread, and could only get a couple of apples,” said Gul Khan, an Afghan carpet seller. He said he wanted to leave for another town, but could not go because of damaged roads.
Hundreds of people waited at bus stations, hoping to leave Muzaffarabad.
The body of a man lay on a roadside and nearby a family pushed a body in a cart.
Officials said Balakot, in the North West Frontier Province about 100 kilometres north of Islamabad, was one of the hardest-hit areas. Near the ruins of one collapsed school, at least a dozen bodies were strewn on the streets of the devastated village of about 30,000. At least 250 pupils were feared trapped inside the rubble of a four-storey school.
Dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers but many without tools, pulled at the debris and carried away bodies. Faizan Farooq, a 19-year-old business administration student, said he had heard children under the rubble crying for help immediately after the disaster.
“Now there’s no sign of life,” he said. “We can’t do this without the army’s help. Nobody has come here to help us.”
