Amputations, agony for child quake evacuees

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (L) meets injured earthquake victims at a field hospital in Uri, some 110km from Srinagar yesterday. The earthquake death toll in Indian Kashmir rose above 1,100 people with more than 5,000 injured, a police emergency management officer told AFP. PHOTO: AFP

"He has developed some fear, some psychological or mental problem," weeps Zahoor Ahmed, sitting on a bench beside his son's bed at Islamabad's main hospital, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS).

The boy suffered serious head injuries and a fractured shoulder when his school in the devastated Pakistani Kashmir city of Muzaffarabad -- like thousands of others across the country -- collapsed in Saturday's quake.

The family's house also collapsed and Ahmed's wife lost both of her legs.

"All he does is shout 'go, get out, there is an earthquake'," added Ahmed, 35, a power company worker.

Yet, the boy was one of the lucky ones.

Only a select few hundred were aboard the first helicopters out of the disaster zone. They then got the medical aid that tens of thousands of others have little chance of ever receiving.

PIMS's paediatric wards are crowded with young quake victims ranging in age from 18 months to 12 years. They came from the hardest hit areas -- Muzaffarabad, Balakot, Bagh, Rawalakot.

"Some 190 children have so far been brought and admitted to four wards," Zaheer Abbasi, the hospital's head of paediatric surgery, told AFP.

He said they all bear the gruesome signature of the earthquake: crush injuries to the head, abdomen, chest and head, broken limbs, and worse.

"We had to amputate the limbs of five children, aged from six to 12. They had either hand or leg injuries and they were very serious," he said.