Hope fades for remote quake victims: UN

Pakistani rescuers try to pull out a man trapped under the debris of a collapsed building in town of Balakot in the North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan yesterday. Between 30,000 and 40,000 people died in a massive earthquake that hit Pakistan at the weekend, the Unicef and a senior government official said. PHOTO: AFP

"Some areas have not yet even been reached or assessed," Gerhard Putman-Cramer, head of the UN's Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team told AFP in Islamabad.

Putman-Cramer and six other UNDAC members arrived Sunday in the Pakistani capital to spearhead the UN's relief efforts in the wake of Saturday's devastating earthquake, which has killed almost 20,000 people in Pakistan.

"The urgent need is now for helicopters," said Putman-Cramer. "Road transport is a real headache for everybody."

He said trucks and heavy equipment needed in relief and rescue operations had been flown into Islamabad from countries such as Turkey and France.

But because roads have been blocked by landslides, the equipment could not be shifted to areas in need, he said.

"It's not only rescue work that is being affected, we have to start relief efforts as well. There's a huge need for field hospitals, water, sanitation and for food."

More than 2.5 million people have been left homeless by the devastating 7.6-magnitude earthquake that shook Pakistan and India, a United Nations official said Sunday.

According to the UN team at the site, "at least 2.5 million people are in need of shelter," said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswomen for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Relief.

Pakistan said nearly 20,000 people were killed in Saturday's 7.6-magnitude quake, with the worst hit areas in North West Frontier Province and the Pakistani controlled area of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Swiss national Alain Pasche, a member of Putman-Cramer's team who also helped coordinate relief efforts after the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran that killed some 26,000 people, said time was running out.

If trapped in concrete and steel buildings like those constructed in big cities, people had a chance of surviving for three to four days if they were mercifully caught in a "pocket," said Pasche.

The houses in Kashmir, however, are similar to those in Bam -- block buildings that are quickly reduced to rubble by a large quake.

"In these cases, if you're outside you're alive. If you're inside you're dead," he said.

In a statement issued in Islamabad, the United Nations said that as an immediate measure, UN agencies in Pakistan had begun transporting small amounts of relief items such as blankets, tents, medicine kits, food, water purification tablets and water containers.