Death toll to rise as disaster ‘wipes out generation’
The roads to Pakistani- controlled Kashmir the area worst affected by Saturday's 7.6 magnitude quake were blocked by landslides. Power and water supplies were down, hospitals and schools destroyed.
A senior official said the quake had killed between 30,000 and 40,000 people in Pakistan and injured another 60,000.
The official toll remained at 19,000 but military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said it would rise. Schoolchildren were the worst affected by the quake, he said.
"It is a whole generation that has been lost in the worst affected areas. The maximum number affected was schoolchildren," Major General Sultan said.
"Rescuers are pulling out dead children in Muzaffarabad but there is no one to claim the bodies, which shows their parents are dead.
"Rawalakot has been destroyed. Muzaffarabad is 70% destroyed. There is not a single house in Muzaffarabad which has not suffered damage. There is not a single family there that has not suffered."
UNICEF spokeswoman Julia Spry Leverton said children accounted for around 50% of the population in the affected areas in northern Pakistan and Kashmir.
"We have been told by the Government that 30,000 to 40,000 died," Ms Leverton said.
"It's a very bad situation. We are getting reports of casualties from all the affected areas."
Witnesses and correspondents say schools collapsed, and many hundreds were trapped in the wreckage.
Hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors in the mountains of northeast Pakistan were waiting for help after spending a second night in freezing temperatures.
People dug through the night to try to reach trapped friends and relatives.
The UN said helicopters were needed to bring rescue equipment and aid to villages in the Himalayas.
"It's not only rescue work that is being affected, we have to start relief efforts. There's a huge need for field hospitals, water, sanitation and for food," said Gerhard Putman-Cramer, head of the UN's Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team.
