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38,000 dead in Pakistan from quake
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-10-15 14:56 Pakistani and UN officials have said the death toll is sure to rise
significantly as the rubble is cleared. More than 25,000 people have been
confirmed dead in Pakistan and 1,300 in India, with 2.5 million homeless in
Pakistan alone.
"We have moved from search and rescue to search and recovery," said Major
Farooq Nasir, the spokesman for the army's emergency relief operations in
Muzaffarabad.
As bulldozers and front-end loaders began crushing and shovelling the jagged
concrete remains of buildings on Friday, the smell of dead bodies underneath
overpowered the streets.
International aid has been arriving, but a shortage of helicopters and the
difficulty of the terrain has meant thousands of people are still fending for
themselves as the first snows appear on the Himalayan foothills.
Stunned, injured and weak, villagers from the remotest areas have begun to
trudge into population centres looking for help, only to find chaos and scenes
of even greater destruction.
"There were 100 houses and they were all demolished. Not one is left," said
Gulzman, an 80-year-old who walked 15 kilometers (nine miles) to Muzaffarabad
from Petehka, a town to the south.
"The schools crumbled down on 3,000 schoolchildren and 1,000 high schoolers.
None of them could escape."
No one knows how many children were buried alive at their desks when their
government-funded schools collapsed around them. Some officials have said
thousands of schools lie in ruins.
Pakistan says it needs more helicopters, blankets, tents, medicine and food
in the short-term, while the United Nations has warned that the long-term
reconstruction effort will cost billions of dollars and take up to 10 years.
But Egeland, the face of the international response to the Asian tsunami
catastrophe, has rejected criticism that the relief effort has been confused and
tardy.
"It is not slow. The first three or four days there weren't even (open) roads
here," he said. "The devastation is beyond belief."
He called for more aid from the international community, saying only 50
million dollars have been pledged of the 272 million dollars the United Nations
asked for Tuesday to provide immediate assistance.
"I also urge the world, in addition to more helicopters, to think of how much
it takes to get a roof for more than one million people in the space of days and
weeks," he said.
He said he was "fairly optimistic" that a "much bigger relief effort" would
be seen over the next week.
"But we must not forget the people who will be spending their seventh night
tonight -- they should not need to spend an eighth or ninth night in cold and
colder climate," he said.
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