Relatives carry an injured man in the Pakistani town of Balakot yesterday. Rescuers searched frantically in the rubble of flattened towns and villages for survivors of a devastating earthquake that killed more than 20,000 people in northern Pakistan and India. - REUTERS
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AP):
RESCUERS STRUGGLED to reach remote, mountainous areas and stricken residents of a devastated city scavenged for food and gasolene yesterday, a day after a deadly, massive earthquake struck Pakistan and India. The tremor wiped out entire villages, severing transportation links and knock-ing out power and water supply.
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 465 dead, and Afghanistan said four were killed.
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said the magnitude 7.6 earthquake was the country's worst on record, and appealed for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote areas.
BUSH TO SEND AID
In response, U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday promised cash and eight helicopters to help with earthquake rescue and recovery.
"Thousands of people have died, thousands are wounded, and the United States of America wants to help," Bush said from the Oval Office.
Bush said he called Musharraf and "told him that we want to help in any way we can."
Pakistan's Prime minister Shaukat Aziz said the American helicopters would be drawn from coalition military operations in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Rival India also offered assistance.
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, Muzaf-farabad, where 11,000 died, 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 Mahmmod, Communications Minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.
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 swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangla-desh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles (400 kilometres) from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed.
