Pakistan, India work out Kashmir opening

A elderly Pakistani woman carries relief goods on her head as she walks past Balakot yesterday. Severe aftershocks jolted Pakistan and India earlier yesterday, after the 7.6 level earthquake killed at least 42,000 people on October 8, and left more than three million homeless and in desperate need of relief aid as winter approaches. PHOTO: AFP

The United Nations said the fresh tremors were spreading fear among more than three million people left homeless and dependent on international aid by the October 8 quake, as well as causing dangerous landslides.

In Pakistan -- where more than 41,000 died in the country's worst natural disaster -- a 5.8 magnitude shock was felt in the capital Islamabad and other northern cities at 7:34 am local time, the seismological department said.

Less than an hour later a 5.4 magnitude tremor rumbled through.

The first aftershock caused a landslide in Balakot, one of the cities hardest hit by the initial quake. Debris covered the road to nearby Mansehra, but it was quickly cleared, said Pakistani Army Lt. Col. Saeed Iqbal, who is in charge of relief efforts in the area.

A landslide also blocked a road out of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, but it was expected to be cleared quickly.

Across the frontier in India's sector of divided Kashmir, where more than 1,300 people died in the main quake, a string of tremors shortly after midnight (1830 GMT) Wednesday sparked panic.

In Indian-held Kashmir, the new tremors startled thousands of people in relief camps, including those in the worst-hit Uri and Tangdar districts close to the boundary with Pakistan-held territory. Police said there were no reports of landslides or damage to buildings.

"People rushed out of their houses and took temporary refuge in open fields in Srinagar and other towns," police said, referring to Indian's Kashmir's summer capital.

The UN said 20 percent of quake-hit regions had still not been reached by the armada of helicopters, trucks and mules trying to supply winter-proof tents, blankets, food and water to desperate survivors.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf proposed late Tuesday that Kashmiris should be allowed to cross the Line of Control that divides the Himalayan region and help family members with relief and rebuilding efforts.

"We have decided now we would allow an amount of people coming from across the Line of Control to our part of Kashmir to meet their relatives and assist in the reconstruction effort," Musharraf said in Muzaffarabad.

India welcomed Musharraf's remarks but said it was waiting for "practical details" of the proposal for the opening of the ceasefire line, which was set in 1949 after the first of the three wars with Pakistan.