Hungry Families Await Relief Supplies in Pakistan
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MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan – Shopkeepers clashed with looters yesterday, and hungry families huddled under tents while waiting for relief supplies after Pakistan’s worst earthquake razed entire villages and buried roads in rubble. Death toll estimates ranged from 20,000 to 30,000.
British rescuers unearthed a man trapped in rubble for 54 hours, residents using their bare hands and crowbars freed two girls buried in a school for more than two days, and a woman and child were pulled to safety from a wrecked building after 62 hours.
Setting aside decades-old rivalries, Pakistan said it would accept earthquake aid from India, and a top rebel commander reportedly ordered the suspension of violence in earthquake hit areas of Indian Kashmir. Authorities in New Delhi promised delivery “on a very urgent basis.”
Eight American military helicopters from Afghanistan arrived in Islamabad with provisions, and Washington pledged up to $50 million in relief and reconstruction aid, American Ambassador Ryan Crocker said. “The magnitude of this disaster is utterly overwhelming,” Mr. Crocker said. “We have under way the beginning of a very major relief effort.”
The United Nations said more than 2.5 million people were left homeless by Saturday’s magnitude-7.6 quake, and doctors warned of an outbreak of disease unless more relief arrives soon. The hardest-hit area was the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided between Pakistan and India.
With landslides blocking roads to many of the worst-hit areas, Pakistan’s army airlifted food, water, and medicine into the disaster zone. International relief efforts cranked into action, and an American plane full of relief supplies landed at an air base near Pakistan’s capital yesterday.
Most of the dead were in Pakistan’s mountainous north. India reported at least 865 deaths, but Home Secretary V.K. Duggal said it was not expected to rise much higher.
With the situation dire, Pakistan set aside politics and said it would accept relief aid for earthquake victims from India – backing away from earlier refusals.
