Rain, cold compound misery of survivors

A Kashmiri quake victim shivers in cold while waiting for relief goods during rain in the earthquake-devastated Muzaffarabad yesterday. Heavy rain and cloud halted air operations supplying desperately needed aid to survivors of Pakistan's earthquake after a cold night rocked by new tremors. PHOTO: AFP

Heavy rain began falling early yesterday in many quake-hit towns and snow fell in the surrounding mountains, disrupting efforts to help an estimated 2 million people lacking shelter ahead of the harsh Himalayan winter. Downpours earlier in the week had grounded helicopters and stopped trucks loaded with relief supplies.

And with 62,000 lying injured without proper medical care -- many with no care at all -- fears are growing that thousands more could die of infections and other complications in the coming days.

"Several thousand people will die in the next few days. Their wounds have turned septic, they have fractures," Sean Keogh, of Britain-based Medical Relief International (Merlin), said after travelling on foot through remote areas.

Helicopter relief flights which have been ferrying supplies into the quake zone and ferrying out the injured were halted for about an hour and a half Saturday morning before being resumed, except to the northern town of Balakot where the weather was particularly bad. That left hundreds of injured, cold and terrified people waiting by the helipad, hoping for the weather to clear.

In desperately short supply were what was needed most: tents.

"We have begged for tents from relief workers but they say there are no more," said Rehamatullah, a 70-year-old man who hiked to Balakot from a nearby village, looking for supplies. "We're very worried as our families are staying in the open."

Meanwhile, Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said the death toll from the Oct. 8 quake had risen to 38,000 with 62,000 others injured. More than 1,350 other people have died in neighboring India.

The official toll, which previously stood at 25,000, rose sharply because more bodies have been pulled from the rubble in recent days, army officials said.

President Gen. Pervez Mushar-raf said the grim numbers were likely to get worse as rescue and recovery teams reach more communities, some still virtually untouched since the Oct. 8 quake. "I think it will keep rising when we go into the valleys," the president said.

At 8:51 a.m., thousands of Muslims gathered at Islamabad's towering Faisal mosque for special prayers for the dead exactly a week after the temblor.

Prayer leader Qari Nauman Ahmad urged people to donate what they could to quake victims and seek God's forgiveness, saying continuing aftershocks were a sign that God was not happy.

Early Saturday, a magnitude-5 aftershock struck the quake-hit zone, but there were no immediate reports of damage or further injury. There have been more than 500 aftershocks over the past week.

Rescue workers abandoned the official search Friday for survivors trapped in the rubble, though individual efforts continued, with an 18-month-old girl reportedly pulled out alive from the ruins of her home in the town of Balimang, in North-West Frontier Province.

Four helicopters, two from the International Red Cross and two from the Pakistan army, landed in the devastated Kashmiri city of Muzaffarabad on Saturday morning, and another army spokesman Maj. Farooq Nasir said the relief operation was on but could change with the weather.