Quake relief flights resume

A halt in heavy rains today allowed helicopter relief flights to resume across Pakistan’s quake zone, but fresh landslides hampered efforts to move supplies by road and officials estimated the death toll could now be more than 54,000.

Eight international medical teams took off from Muzaffarabad to outlying villages, as fears grew for millions of survivors without healthcare and shelter in the isolated mountains of Kashmir. A US diplomat estimated that about one-fifth of populated areas had yet to be reached.