With bare hands villagers dug into the rubble of collapsed schools yesterday, desperately searching for child survivors of a massive earthquake that killed over 30,000 people in south Asia. Pakistan bore the brunt of the disaster, the country's worst ever, writes Rahul Bedi in New Delhi
The majority of Saturday's 30,000 earthquake victims, many of them women and children, died in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Tariq Mahmoud, the region's communications minister, said.
Officials said nearly 20,000 bodies had been counted but estimated that the toll could exceed 30,000 as the devastated region was mountainous and travel had become even more difficult after the earthquake.
At least 50,000 were believed to be injured. The UN estimated that more than 2.5 million people needed shelter.
The worst-hit city, with 11,000 dead, was Pakistani Kashmir's capital Muzaffarabad, the epicentre of Saturday's earthquake, 94km north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad. It measured 7.6 on the Richter scale.
Authorities in neighbouring India-controlled Kashmir reported over 600 deaths and more than 900 people injured, while Afghanistan reported at least four deaths.
The earthquake flattened dozens of villages, killing farmers, homemakers, soldiers and schoolchildren. It was followed by 22 aftershocks - one of magnitude 6.2 - at regular intervals 24 hours after the main quake, further scaring terrified victims.
The quake struck Pakistan at around 9am local time, triggering landslides in the hilly regions that blocked rescuers from many areas. Villagers said they felt forsaken.
Thousands of survivors were left without shelter in near-freezing night-time temperatures, their misery exacerbated in several places by heavy rain.
Victims were forced to burn wood from their own collapsed homes for warmth as they waited, in vain, for help to arrive.
"We do seek international assistance," Pakistan's president Gen Pervez Musharraf said.
"We have enough manpower, but we need financial support," he added.
"We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history," Pakistani military spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan said.
Many villages had been wiped off the face of the earth, he said.
In response, help poured in from across the globe, with China and Japan sending emergency response teams and Ireland, Germany, Australia and Thailand pledging aid in cash.
The UN has sent a team to co-ordinate disaster response.
The quake and its aftershocks were felt from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh, with buildings wrecked in an area spanning over 400km. These stretched from Jalalabad in southern Afghanistan to Srinagar in north Indian Kashmir.
Injured people covered by shawls lay in the street across Pakistani Kashmir, waiting for medical care as ill-equipped hospitals were unable to cope with the incessant flow of victims.
In some areas bodies were placed under sheets of corrugated iron, relatives unable to even find sheets to wrap the bodies.
"We don't have anything to bury them with," Saqib Swati, who lost three children, said.
Communications links across the region were disrupted.
Pakistani military helicopters, meanwhile, ferried soldiers and supplies to some areas, but there was no sign of government help in Balakot, a northern town with a population of around 30,000 some 100km north of Islamabad where the quake levelled the main bazaar, crushing shoppers and sending gas cylinders, bricks, tomatoes and onions spilling into the streets.
Elsewhere in Balakot shop owner Mohammed Iqbal said two primary schools had also collapsed.
He estimated that more than 500 students were feared dead.
Several International Federation of Red Cross trucks laden with tents, food, medicine and other aid were trying to reach the hard-hit areas in Pakistan, Layla Berlemont, a spokeswoman for the group in Islamabad, said.
The agency would use aircraft if the roads are blocked, she added.