Quake kills more than 3,000 in South Asia

[Amelia]

Quake kills more than 3,000 in South Asia

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10/8/2005

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

The Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A huge earthquake triggered landslides, toppled an apartment building and flattened villages of mud-brick homes Saturday, killing thousands across a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. The worst damage was in Pakistan, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.

The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor stood at more than 3,000 by early Sunday and was rising as rescuers struggled to dig people from the wreckage, their work made more difficult as rain and hail turned dirt and debris into sticky muck.

For hours, aftershocks rattled an area stretching from Afghanistan across northern Pakistan into India's portion of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing tremors could cause more damage.

The earthquake, which struck just before 9 a.m., caused buildings to sway for about a minute in the capitals of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, an area some 625 miles across. Panicked people ran from homes and offices, and communications were cut to many areas.

Most of the devastation occurred in the mountains of northern Pakistan. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of the capital, Islamabad, in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir.

"It is a national tragedy," said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."

In Mansehra, a shopowner named Haji Fazal Ilahi stood vigil over the body of his 14-year-old daughter, which lay under a sheet on a hospital mattress. He said his wife, another daughter and a brother also died when the family's house fell.

"I could see rocks and homes tumbling down the mountains," said Ilahi, who was driving to his village of Garlat when the quake struck. "When I reached my village, there was nothing left of my home."

India's government offered condolences and assistance to Pakistan, a longtime rival with which it has been pursuing peace efforts after fighting three wars since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

"While parts of India have also suffered from this unexpected natural disaster, we are prepared to extend any assistance with rescue and relief which you may deem appropriate," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a message to Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

India reported at least 250 people killed and 800 injured when the quake collapsed 2,700 houses and other buildings in Jammu-Kashmir state. Most of the deaths occurred in the border towns of Uri, Tangdar and Punch and in the city of Srinagar, said B.B. Vyas, the state's divisional commissioner.

Telephone lines were down. Some bridges developed cracks, but traffic was reported to be passing over them.

A senior Pakistani army officer said 200 soldiers were killed by debris and landslides in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

About 1,000 civilians died in that region, said Sardar Mohammed Anwar, the top government official in the area.

"This is my conservative guess, and the death toll could be much higher," Anwar told Pakistan's Aaj television station, adding that most homes in Muzaffarabad, the area's capital, were damaged, and schools and hospitals collapsed.

The death toll was at least 1,600 in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, said Akram Durani, the province's top elected official.

Ataullah Khan Wazir, police chief in the northwestern district of Mansehra, said authorities there pulled the bodies of 250 students from the wreckage of one girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. About 500 students were injured, he said.

Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.

Mansehra, about 90 miles northwest of the capital, was believed to be a hotbed of Islamic militant activity during the time the Taliban religious militia ruled neighboring Afghanistan. Al-Qaida operatives trained suicide squads at a camp there, Afghan and Pakistani sources told The Associated Press in 2002.

Afghanistan appeared to suffer the least damage. In its east, an 11-year-old girl was crushed to death when a wall in her home collapsed, police official Gafar Khan said.

A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, said the quake was felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but he had no reports of damage at bases around the country.

The United Nations said it was working with Pakistan, Afghanistan and India on an emergency response to the quake.

President Bush offered condolences, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was ready to help.

"At this difficult time, the United States stands with its friends in Pakistan and India, just as they stood with us and offered assistance after Hurricane Katrina," Rice said in a statement.

In Pakistan, Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ordered the military to extend "all-out help" to quake-hit areas and appealed to the nation to stay calm.

Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas, but landslides and rain hindered rescue efforts.

The only serious damage reported in Pakistan's capital was the collapse of a 10-story apartment building, where at least 10 people were killed and 126 were injured. Hospital doctors said the dead included an Egyptian diplomat, and the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said two Japanese were killed.

A man named Rehmatullah who lived near the apartment building said he dust enveloped the wreckage.

"I rushed down, and for some time you could not see anything because of the dust. Then we began to look for people in the rubble," he said. "We pulled out one man by cutting off his legs."

"It was like hell," added Nauman Ali, who lives in a nearby building. "I was tossed up in my bed and the ceiling fan struck against the roof."

Aided by two large cranes, hundreds of police and soldiers helped remove chunks of concrete, one of which was splattered with blood. One rescue worker said he heard faint cries from people trapped in the rubble.

In Abbotabad, north of Islamabad, dozens of injured quake victims and other patients lay on the lawn of the city hospital as staff with loudspeakers appealed to the public for food and other relief supplies.

One of the injured was an 8-year-old boy, Qadeer, whose father, a farmer named Jehangir, said the only buildings left standing in their village were a mosque and a school. Qadeer lay unconscious, his right leg heavily bandaged.

Authorities laid out dozens of bodies under sheets in a damaged sports stadium in Muzaffarabad.

[Naomi]

It just doesn't seem to end ... praying for the people of S Asia.

[Neil D]

Quote:

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Naomi said:

It just doesn't seem to end ... praying for the people of S Asia.

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[quiet voice] noo....it doesn't seem to end, does it? [sigh]

[Amelia]

On tonights news there was a report on this quake. The reporter interviewed PM Aziz. He talked about all the aid coming from friendly nations. No mention of aid coming from the USA.

[Taylor]

USA has now said they are sending in Aid. The sad thing is that on the ABC news website this morning I saw the number 30,000. This is simply dreadful!! Those poor people! Can you imagine their grief and desperate feelings?

[CyberGuy]

Al Qaida leaders after Hurricane Katrina said this was Gods judement on the USA for invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Over 1000 died there. Now this quake hits their home turf where they are hiding and 20,000 to 30,000 are reported dead. Now where is Gods wrath now? Of course I do not believe God is singling out anyone but pointing fingers at disasters as signs of Gods displeasure is a two edged sword. When it happens in your backyard it gives your enemies glee to point back at you and claim God is now punishing you pressed down and running over.

[aldona]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

Amelia said:

On tonights news there was a report on this quake. The reporter interviewed PM Aziz. He talked about all the aid coming from friendly nations. No mention of aid coming from the USA.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

From the Australian ABC news website:

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The United States, which has expressed gratitude that Pakistan stepped forward after Hurricane Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast last month, says it will provide about $A130,000 in emergency aid funds.

It has also offered US military helicopters.

President George W Bush, who counts Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as a key ally in the US-led war against terrorism, says further assistance will be provided as needed.

"My thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this horrible tragedy," he said, echoing an outpouring of sympathy from across the world.

Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are among others dispatching help.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

One of the few good things that I can see coming out of disasters like this, is that (at least temporarily) it causes nations to put aside political differences and work together to provide assistance.

Even India and Pakistan, who are usually rivals and who have been fighting over the territory of Kashmir for decades, have dropped their hostilities and are using their respective military forces to provide assistance in the same area.

aldona

[Amelia]

Im glad to see we are doing something.

[Amelia]

Asian earthquake toll tops 30,000

Rescue crews still finding survivors buried under debris

Monday, October 10, 2005

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Searchers worked through the night to find more survivors of Pakistan's worst earthquake, as some people expressed anger over the pace of relief efforts.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/10/10/quake.asia/index.html#content

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http://www.kgw.com/frame.jsp?sid=http://www.pe.com/digitalextra/flash/quake2/

[CyberGuy]

GARHI HABIBULLAH, Pakistan, Oct. 9 -- Zakar Hussain felt sick when he saw the school. Moments earlier, it had been a two-story stone-and-concrete building filled with hundreds of girls in blue-and-white uniforms. Now it was a heap of rubble, enveloped in a cloud of white dust. Already, he could hear the screams.

And somewhere inside was his daughter.

"Maria! Maria!" Hussain shouted, as hordes of other desperate parents converged on the scene. For nearly 30 minutes, he said, he frantically circled the flattened building, peering between broken concrete slabs with his weeping wife at his side.

Then, amid the cacophony of cries, Hussain heard a familiar voice. "Abu!" the 14-year-old girl shouted from somewhere beneath the wreckage. "Father!"

Strength and hope surging through his veins, the 50-year-old retired forester urged his daughter to stay calm, then grabbed a heavy stone and began pounding it against the concrete to make a hole...

After hearing his daughter's voice, "I felt I could move all this debris," said Hussain, whose bloodied and bandaged hands bore witness to his struggle. He and his brother pounded on the rubble for 15 minutes and finally opened a two-foot-wide hole. There on the other side, he said, was his daughter's tear-streaked face.

He grabbed her by the chin and pulled her, uninjured, to safety.

"I was very sure I would die," recalled Maria, a wavy-haired girl who says she wants to be a doctor. The teenager said she was sitting in Urdu class with 62 other children on the ground floor of the building when the earthquake struck. The teacher, Miss Yasib, had just begun the day's lesson, on "friendship and responsibility."

At the first jolt, many children ran for the exit, and some escaped outside, Maria recalled. But then the ceiling caved in, trapping her and several dozen other children in a dark space about two feet high. After she heard her father's voice, Maria said, she crawled about 30 feet through the gloom toward a pinprick of light, which grew steadily wider.

About 50 girls were pulled from the shattered building alive, according to Hussain and Mohammed Shafik, the school watchman.

Others met tragedy. By Saturday night, townspeople working with saws, shovels and sledgehammers had removed the bodies of 138 girls, including some from Maria's Urdu class, according to Hussain and other residents. Among the dead was Miss Yasib.