Rescue Teams Reach Areas Devastated by Earthquake

Relief workers struggled today to help massive numbers of earthquake victims amid shattered buildings and a lack of medical supplies, water and food in the devastated towns of Pakistan’s mountainous north.

The grounds of the destroyed Mansehra District Hospital had been turned into a makeshift relief camp, where thousands of suffering survivors, including about 4,600 with serious injuries, lay in tents, wearing bandages and slings.

Many had severe chest and head injuries, and there was a shortage of antibiotics, injectable painkillers, dressings and other supplies, said Dr. Mohammed Qasim, medical officer at the relief camp.

Despite the efforts of five Pakistani surgical teams operating around the clock, 15 people had died over the last three days, he said.

Ghulam Hussain, 8, lay on a cracked foam mattress in the corner of one tent, clutching a white plastic flute. His swollen foot bore a gaping 3-by-6-inch wound.

Ghulam had been trapped for several hours when the wall of his primary school in the town of Balakot collapsed as he fled his first-grade class, said his brother Iqbal, 14.

“Seventy of his schoolmates lost their lives,” Iqbal said. “Luckily, he was outside the classroom when it happened.”

International rescue workers arriving in the area Monday were met by scenes of utter devastation.

Barely a building still stood in Balakot, which had a population of about 40,000 people, and victims whose bodies were recovered from the rubble were wrapped in white sheets and reburied in mass graves.

Traffic choked the road overlooking town. Hundreds of Pakistani volunteers were streaming in, many with pickaxes, shovels and sledgehammers. Ambulances with sirens wailing moved in the opposite direction, loaded with the injured.

In Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir, hungry survivors jostled for food distributed by local government workers. And in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province, a medical emergency was declared to expedite treatment of injured survivors trickling in from flattened rural villages.

The death toll from Saturday’s magnitude 7.6 quake continued to rise, and Pakistan’s Interior Ministry said late Monday that 20,745 people had been killed and 47,000 injured nationwide. The United Nations, meanwhile, estimated that more than 2.5 million people had been rendered homeless as winter approaches in the rugged region.

Rescue teams from Japan, China, France, Hungary and the United Arab Emirates arrived Monday in Balakot and outlying areas to find bodies still hidden under buildings and large numbers of survivors wandering streets without shelter, food, drinking water or emergency medical equipment.

Airlifts of supplies were expected this morning, when eight U.S. military helicopters, which had arrived in Islamabad, the national capital, on Monday from neighboring Afghanistan, were to ferry tents, medicine, blankets and additional equipment to hard-to-reach victims.

Anger appeared on the rise, however, as thousands of desperate survivors continued to await initial aid and heavy equipment to dig out the dead and dying.

In Muzaffarabad, looters reportedly clashed with shopkeepers. And in the Battagram district of North-West Frontier Province, residents said a Japanese team was preparing to launch body recovery operations but that supplies handed out by the Pakistani army had proved painfully inadequate.

“The affected population in Battagram district requires about 40,000 tents and blankets, while the army troops left only 40,” said resident Ihsanullah Dawar, reached by phone.

President Pervez Musharraf appealed for patience and calm.

“For heaven’s sake, bear with us,” the Pakistani leader said. “There are certain limitations. We are trying our best.”

Foreign nations have thus far pledged $100 million in disaster relief aid to Pakistan, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told reporters in Islamabad.

Aziz said Balakot had been hit hardest and that unknown numbers of people were dead in numerous villages that relief teams had not yet reached.

Rehman Khan, a receptionist at the Fairyland Hotel in Naran, about 60 miles north of Balakot, said he saw countless destroyed villages as he walked to Balakot. Landslides overturned a dozen trucks on the highway, and the drivers and assistants were dead inside, he added.

A senior Pakistani official here said army engineers had moved heavy machinery to open roads in the area blocked by huge boulders and mud.

Hospital sources said that about 40 people with multiple injuries had been shifted from the Balakot Valley to various hospitals in Peshawar. Bodies were also being transported across the region for burial.

Amir Hamza, 2 1/2 , who suffered serious head injuries and a fractured arm, arrived at the neurology ward of the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar late Sunday night. Amir’s mother, in a coma, and his younger sister were admitted to the orthopedic ward.

Amir’s father, Maulvi Noorul Haq, said he had lost three other daughters in the earthquake.

“I brought three bodies and buried them near Peshawar,” said Noorul Haq, who runs a seminary in Balakot, where the only hospital in the area had collapsed. “People have no food and shelter. I have never seen any relief activities or ambulance service in the area to take out wounded. The main problem is how to retrieve bodies from the rubble and bury them.”

A doctor at the hospital, constructed under British rule, said that additional beds had been placed in wards to accommodate expected patients. He said most victims had head injuries or fractures.

Meanwhile, a U.S. military C-17 transport aircraft arrived in Islamabad on Monday with blankets, winterized tents and other relief supplies. It was the first aid in the $50-million initial White House pledge.

Additional relief will include enough plastic sheeting to help build temporary shelter for about 2,500 families, along with 5,000 blankets and 5,000 water containers. A second C-17 and two C-130s are scheduled to arrive today.

The U.S. military helicopters, including six CH-47 Chinook transport choppers, are to begin airlifts of relief aid to remote villages at dawn today.

The U.S. also sent a variety of officials to begin assessing what additional aid Pakistan would need. Officials from U.S. Central Command, the Pentagon division responsible for Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the region, will help assess damage, according to U.S. officials.

A 42-member British rescue team working in the ruins of a collapsed high-rise apartment in Islamabad rescued a woman Monday from under huge chunks of concrete and twisted steel. A 2-year-old boy was also rescued from under the debris by the British team, which was assisted by sniffer dogs.

At least 81 injured survivors have been pulled from the rubble of the Margalla Towers complex since the main quake struck.

One of the rescued survivors, a man in his 20s, shouted “Allahu akbar!” (God is great!) and thrust his arms in the air as he emerged late Sunday from beneath the ruins, squinting under bright floodlights. Another 27 people were found dead.

Amid the catastrophe, there were glimmers of hope it may give new impetus to efforts between India and Pakistan to resolve their decades-old dispute over the territory of Kashmir.

Syed Salahuddin, head of the Hizbul Mujahedin, the largest militant group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, had ordered his forces to cease fire, the Kashmir News Service reported.

But the news was greeted with skepticism on both sides of the disputed territory, where any cease-fire was expected to be temporary.

Indian security forces said some militants based in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir appeared to be trying to take advantage of the chaotic aftermath of the quake to infiltrate into Indian territory, where more than 1,000 people, including more than 20 troops, died in the quake.

Pakistan agreed Monday to accept Indian relief aid after initially rejecting New Delhi’s offer.

Special correspondent Ali reported from Peshawar, Times staff writer Watson from northern Pakistan and special correspondent Zaidi from Islamabad. Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington and special correspondent Shankhadeep Choudhury in Uri, India, also contributed to this report.

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How to help

These are some of the aid agencies accepting contributions for assistance to those affected by the earthquake in South Asia.

Action Against Hunger

247 West 37th St., Suite 1201

New York, NY 10018

(877) 777-1420

www.actionagainsthunger.org

ADRA International

12501 Old Columbia Pike

Silver Spring, MD 20904

(800) 424-ADRA (2372)

www.adra.org

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Inc.

P.O. Box 321

847A 2nd Ave.

New York, NY 10017

(212) 687-6200

www.jdc.org

American Jewish World Service

45 W. 36th St., 10th Floor

New York, NY 10018

(800) 889-7146

www.ajws.org

American Red Cross

International Response Fund

P.O. Box 37243

Washington, DC 20013

(800) HELP-NOW

www.redcross.org

American Refugee Committee

Rapid Response Fund NW 5618

P.O. Box 1450

Minneapolis, MN 55485-5618

(612) 872-7060

www.archq.org

AmeriCares

88 Hamilton Ave.

Stamford, CT 06902

(800) 486-HELP (4357)

www.americares.org

Baptist World Aid

Earthquake Relief

405 N. Washington St.

Falls Church, VA 22046

(703) 790-8980

www.bwanet.org/bwaid

B’nai B’rith Disaster Relief Fund

2020 K Street NW, 7th Floor

Washington, DC 20006

(888) 388-4224

www.bnaibrith.org

Brother’s Brother Foundation

Asia Earthquake

1200 Galveston Ave.

Pittsburgh, PA 15233

(888) 323-1916

www.brothersbrother.org

CARE

P.O. Box 1870

Merrifield, VA 22116-9646

(800) 521-CARE

www.careusa.org

Catholic Relief Services

P.O. Box 17090

Baltimore, MD 21203-7090

(800) 736-3467

www.catholicrelief.org

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC)

South Asia Earthquake 2005

2850 Kalamazoo Ave. SE

Grand Rapids, MI 49560

(800) 55-CRWRC

www.crwrc.org

Direct Relief International

27 S. La Patera Lane

Santa Barbara, CA 93117

(800) 676-1638

www.directrelief.org

Episcopal Relief and Development

Emergency Relief Fund

P.O. Box 12043

Newark, NJ 07101

(800) 334-7626, ext. 5129

www.er-d.org

World Vision

P.O. Box 70288

Tacoma, WA 98481-0288

888-56-CHILD

www.worldvision.org

Sources: Associated Press,

Los Angeles Times