Cry for more mercy flights

A Pakistani Kashmiri holds his son with an amputated arm in Muzaffarabad as they arrived from the quake devastated region of Bagh yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Pakistani army spokesman Major Farooq Nasir said blue skies after torrential downpours on Tuesday had cleared the way for more mercy flights to bring badly needed food and medicine, and take away the injured.

"We are bringing in food, blankets, tents, and rescue teams. The weather has cleared so we're going full-ahead now with the relief operations," Nasir told AFP in this devastated city, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Pakistan has been pledged 350 million dollars in international relief after the weekend earthquake, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said yesterday following talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"Our request for financial assistance is receiving 350 million dollars now and growing," Aziz told reporters.

He said a separate government appeal for donations by Pakistanis had garnered more than one billion rupees (16.6 million dollars).

Aziz was speaking after talks with Rice, who said the US military was coordinating with Pakistan, its ally in the "war on terror", to reach survivors of the quake which left at least 23,000 dead.

Rice said she diverted a tour of Central Asia "to express directly" to President Pervez Musharraf and Aziz how the tragedy has "touched Americans deeply".

"The United States like many other people in the world has been through natural disasters," she said. "Our support is not just for today but tomorrow as well."

The UN appealed for 272 million dollars to help victims of disaster.

Yvette Stevens, the world body's UN assistant emergency relief coordinator, said more would eventually be needed.

Foreign search and rescue teams combing the debris of collapsed buildings in Pakistan were expected to complete work on Wednesday, with efforts shifting to broader relief operations, according to the UN, which is coordinating international aid.

Energy-rich Gulf states also offered emergency aid, with the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait giving 200 million dollars in assistance.

Washington pledged up to 50 million dollars in initial assistance for Pakistan.

The European Union, as well as Canada, offered millions in aid.

The offers came as Pakistan said the death toll had reached 23,000 with as many as 60,000 people injured by the 7.6 magnitude quake.

Muzaffarabad bore the brunt of the 7.6-magnitude earthquake which struck on Saturday, killing at least 23,000 people in Pakistan and instantly making some 2.5 million homeless, according to official estimates.

It was the worst natural calamity in Pakistan's history and officials fear the death toll could rise in the days ahead as the rubble is cleared and more bodies are found.

Towns and villages across northern Pakistan and parts of Kashmir have turned into makeshift refugee camps, with shocked survivors huddling under whatever they can find as they wait for aid that many say has been too slow coming.

Nasir said 95 helicopter relief flights had brought vital supplies to the worst-hit regions of Kashmir over the past 24 hours, including 12 in the first few hours of daylight on Wednesday.

Witnesses said the thumping twin-rotors of US army Chinook helicopters, diverted from the war against Taliban insurgents in neighbouring Afghanistan, could be heard over Muzaffarabad shortly after sunrise.

"We've seen the foreigners sending in help, but nothing from our own government," said Khurshid Bibi, pointing to her family of 15 camped on the roadside as a Chinook flew overhead.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who made his first visit to a relief centre here Wednesday, praised the government's response even as men and women fought each other in the streets for the meagre supplies being distributed.

"At the moment we are in a relief and rescue phase. The third phase is rehabilitation ... We have to think of the winter which is just around the corner," he said.