Doc: 00035593 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sat Oct 8 22:38:05 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D485383 10-08-2005 22:38:05* BC-APNewsAlert:Pakistan's army spokesman s
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BC-APNewsAlert,0028
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistan's army spokesman says the quake in Pakistani Kashmir has killed more than 18,000 people.
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Doc: 00035608 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sat Oct 8 22:45:20 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D42J680 10-08-2005 16:18:33 BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt:Quake razes villa
aD8D430080 10-08-2005 16:45:53 BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional:Quake razes
aD8D444L07 10-08-2005 18:04:04 BC-South Asia-Quake, 1st Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D488G00 10-08-2005 22:45:20* BC-South Asia-Quake, 2nd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48B809 10-08-2005 22:51:12 BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48FD86 10-08-2005 23:00:05 BC-South Asia-Quake, 4th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D490R07 10-08-2005 23:37:16 BC-South Asia-Quake, 5th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D49JFO0 10-09-2005 00:17:03 BC-South Asia-Quake, 6th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D4BMN80 10-09-2005 02:40:29 F BC-South Asia-Quake, 7th Ld-Writethru:Sout
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BC-South Asia-Quake, 2nd Ld,0180
BULLETIN
Quake in South Asia kills more than 18,000 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Eds: LEADS with more than 18,000 dead, per Pakistani army spokesman.
%photo(AP Photos ISL101, 106, 115, 240 SRI103 URI104%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – A huge earthquake triggered landslides, toppled an apartment building and flattened villages of mud-brick homes Saturday, killing more than 18,000 people across a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor rose sharply Sunday 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. Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, told Pakistan's Geo TV network early Sunday that more than 18,000 had been killed.
BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld,0342
URGENT
Quake in South Asia kills more than 18,000 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Eds: LEADS with detail on dead, injured, per Pakistani army spokesman.
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
AP Photos ISL101, 106, 115, 240 SRI103 URI104
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
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Doc: 00035637 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sat Oct 8 22:51:12 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D42J680 10-08-2005 16:18:33 BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt:Quake razes villa
aD8D430080 10-08-2005 16:45:53 BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional:Quake razes
aD8D444L07 10-08-2005 18:04:04 BC-South Asia-Quake, 1st Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D488G00 10-08-2005 22:45:20 BC-South Asia-Quake, 2nd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48B809 10-08-2005 22:51:12* BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48FD86 10-08-2005 23:00:05 BC-South Asia-Quake, 4th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D490R07 10-08-2005 23:37:16 BC-South Asia-Quake, 5th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D49JFO0 10-09-2005 00:17:03 BC-South Asia-Quake, 6th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D4BMN80 10-09-2005 02:40:29 F BC-South Asia-Quake, 7th Ld-Writethru:Sout
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – A devastating earthquake triggered landslides, toppled an apartment building and flattened villages of mud-brick homes Saturday, killing more than 18,000 people across a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor rose sharply Sunday 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. Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, told Pakistan's Geo TV network early Sunday that more than 18,000 had been killed – 17,000 of them in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.
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. Saturday, 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," Sultan said earlier. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."
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Doc: 00035661 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sat Oct 8 23:00:05 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D42J680 10-08-2005 16:18:33 BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt:Quake razes villa
aD8D430080 10-08-2005 16:45:53 BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional:Quake razes
aD8D444L07 10-08-2005 18:04:04 BC-South Asia-Quake, 1st Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D488G00 10-08-2005 22:45:20 BC-South Asia-Quake, 2nd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48B809 10-08-2005 22:51:12 BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48FD86 10-08-2005 23:00:05* BC-South Asia-Quake, 4th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D490R07 10-08-2005 23:37:16 BC-South Asia-Quake, 5th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D49JFO0 10-09-2005 00:17:03 BC-South Asia-Quake, 6th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D4BMN80 10-09-2005 02:40:29 F BC-South Asia-Quake, 7th Ld-Writethru:Sout
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BC-South Asia-Quake, 4th Ld-Writethru,1268
Quake in South Asia kills more than 18,000 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Eds: LEADS throughout to restore background.
%photo(AP Photos ISL101, 106, 115, 240 SRI103 URI104%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – A powerful earthquake triggered landslides, flattened entire villages of mud-brick homes and toppled an apartment building on Saturday, killing more than 18,000 people as it devastated a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor rose sharply Sunday 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. Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, told Pakistan's Geo TV network early Sunday that more than 18,000 had been killed – 17,000 of them in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.
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. Saturday, 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, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
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," Sultan said earlier. "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 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.
–––
Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
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Doc: 00035675 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sat Oct 8 23:02:20 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D48GF0C 10-08-2005 23:02:20*F BC-Quake-List:Major earthquakes around the
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BC-Quake-List,0343
Major earthquakes around the world over the past 80 years
With BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt
By The Associated Press
A list of deadly quakes during the past 80 years:
– Oct. 7, 2005: Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, magnitude 7.6; more than 18,000 killed.
– Dec. 26, 2004: Indian Ocean, magnitude 9; more than 174,000 people killed, another 106,000 missing.
– Dec. 26, 2003: Southeastern Iran, Bam, magnitude 6.5; more than 26,000 killed.
– May 21, 2003: Northern Algeria, magnitude 6.8; nearly 2,300 killed.
– March 25, 2002: Northern Afghanistan, magnitude 5.8; up to 1,000 killed.
– Jan. 26, 2001: India, magnitude 7.9; at least 2,500 killed. Estimates put death toll as high as 13,000.
– Sept. 21, 1999: Taiwan, magnitude 7.6; 2,400 killed.
– Aug. 17, 1999: Western Turkey, magnitude 7.4; 17,000 killed.
– Jan. 25, 1999: Western Colombia, magnitude 6; 1,171 killed.
– May 30, 1998: Northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan, magnitude 6.9; as many as 5,000 killed.
– Jan. 17, 1995: Kobe, Japan, magnitude 7.2; more than 6,000 killed.
– Sept. 30, 1993: Latur, India, magnitude 6.0; as many as 10,000 killed.
– June 21, 1990: Northwest Iran, magnitude 7.3-7.7; 50,000 killed.
– Dec. 7, 1988: Northwest Armenia, magnitude 6.9; 25,000 killed.
– Sept. 19, 1985: Central Mexico, magnitude 8.1; more than 9,500 killed.
– Sept. 16, 1978: Northeast Iran, magnitude 7.7; 25,000 killed.
– July 28, 1976: Tangshan, China; magnitude 7.8-8.2; 240,000 killed.
– Feb. 4, 1976: Guatemala, magnitude 7.5; 22,778 killed.
– Feb. 29, 1960: Southwest Atlantic coast in Morocco; magnitude 5.7; some 12,000 killed, town of Agadir destroyed.
– Dec. 26, 1939: Erzincan province, Turkey, magnitude 7.9; 33,000 killed.
– Jan. 24, 1939: Chillan, Chile, magnitude 8.3; 28,000 killed.
– May 31, 1935: Quetta, India, magnitude 7.5; 50,000 killed.
– Sept. 1, 1923: Tokyo-Yokohama, Japan, magnitude 8.3; at least 140,000 killed.
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Doc: 00035722 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sat Oct 8 23:11:31 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D48KOO6 10-08-2005 23:11:31* BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional, 1st Ld-Writ
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional, 1st Ld-Writethru,1310
Quake razes villages, causes landslides, killing over 18,000 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Eds: LEADS with 4 grafs with death toll jumping to 18,000, 'national tragedy' quote, pickup 4th pvs 'For hours...'
%photo(AP Photos ISL101, 106, 115, 240 SRI103 URI104%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – It began as a gentle swaying, but the ground's convulsions quickly grew wilder – shaking walls, roofs and floors. Within seconds, mud-brick homes buckled, bigger buildings pancaked, earth and rock slid down hillsides, burying the helpless.
The earthquake Saturday devastated a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, killing more than 18,000 people. The worst was in Pakistan, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
Of the 18,000 dead in the 7.6-magnitude tremor, 17,000 were in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered and where rescuers struggled to dig people from the wreckage, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, told Pakistan's Geo TV network early Sunday. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.
"It is a national tragedy," Sultan said earlier. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."
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 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.
–––
Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
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Doc: 00035745 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sat Oct 8 23:15:57 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D466V80 10-08-2005 20:25:33 BC-UN-South Asia-Quake:U.N. deploying team
aD8D48MR81 10-08-2005 23:15:57*F BC-UN-South Asia-Quake, 1st Ld-Writethru:U
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BC-UN-South Asia-Quake, 1st Ld-Writethru,0294
U.N. deploying team to Pakistan, official says
Eds: SUBS lede to update with death toll jumping to more than 18,000
With BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt
NEW YORK (AP) – The United Nations sent an emergency coordination team to Pakistan immediately to begin relief efforts after an earthquake left more than 18,000 people dead in southern Asia.
The eight-member team from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was due in Islamabad on Sunday to help set up a center for coordinating the global body's emergency response.
"We know that every hour counts in an earthquake of this magnitude and the United Nations is ready to assist the country affected in any possible manner," Jan Egeland, undersecretary-general for the relief group, said Saturday in a statement from U.N. Headquarters.
In Geneva, U.N. Humanitarian Affairs spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told The Associated Press: "These are our top coordination officials. At least two of the staff we sent have experience from dealing with the (Indian Ocean) tsunami."
The international Red Cross said it also was preparing an emergency response.
Earlier Saturday, two local Pakistan Red Crescent groups were deployed to Pakistan's northwest frontier and another one to Kashmir to assess the damage, said Marie-Francoise Borel, spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"We're hoping to have some idea of the number of dead, number of homeless and the level of damage sometime on Sunday," Borel said. "We need to know if entire villages have been destroyed, do they have access to clean water and do they need food."
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Doc: 00035808 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sat Oct 8 23:37:16 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D42J680 10-08-2005 16:18:33 BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt:Quake razes villa
aD8D430080 10-08-2005 16:45:53 BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional:Quake razes
aD8D444L07 10-08-2005 18:04:04 BC-South Asia-Quake, 1st Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D488G00 10-08-2005 22:45:20 BC-South Asia-Quake, 2nd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48B809 10-08-2005 22:51:12 BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48FD86 10-08-2005 23:00:05 BC-South Asia-Quake, 4th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D490R07 10-08-2005 23:37:16* BC-South Asia-Quake, 5th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D49JFO0 10-09-2005 00:17:03 BC-South Asia-Quake, 6th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D4BMN80 10-09-2005 02:40:29 F BC-South Asia-Quake, 7th Ld-Writethru:Sout
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BC-South Asia-Quake, 5th Ld-Writethru,1154
Quake in South Asia kills more than 18,000 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Eds: LEADS throughout to raise number of dead in India to 340, update number of aftershocks. Deletes outdated material. No pickup.
%photo(AP Photos ISL101, 106, 115, 240 SRI103 URI104%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – A powerful earthquake triggered landslides, flattened entire villages of mud-brick homes and toppled a 10-story apartment building on Saturday, killing more than 18,000 people as it devastated a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor rose sharply Sunday 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. Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, told Pakistan's Geo TV network early Sunday that more than 18,000 had been killed – 17,000 of them in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.
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. Saturday, 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, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
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, and was followed by 22 aftershocks, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor.
"It is a national tragedy," Sultan said earlier. "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 340 people killed 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.
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 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.
–––
Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00035854 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sat Oct 8 23:53:58 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D498LG0 10-08-2005 23:53:58* BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional, 2nd Ld-Writ
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional, 2nd Ld-Writethru,1222
Quake razes villages, causes landslides, killing over 18,000 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Eds: LEADS throughout to update number of aftershocks, deaths in India, raise locator for Mansehra.
%photo(AP Photos ISL101, 106, 115, 240 SRI103 URI104%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – It began as a gentle swaying, but the ground's convulsions quickly grew wilder – shaking walls, roofs and floors. Within seconds, mud-brick homes buckled, bigger buildings pancaked, earth and rock slid down hillsides, burying the helpless.
The earthquake Saturday devastated a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, killing more than 18,000 people. The worst was in Pakistan, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
Of the 18,000 dead in the 7.6-magnitude tremor, 17,000 were in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered and where rescuers struggled to dig people from the wreckage, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, told Pakistan's Geo TV network early Sunday. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.
"It is a national tragedy," Sultan said earlier. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."
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, and was followed by 22 aftershocks, including a magnitude 6.2 temblor.
"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, about 90 miles northwest of the Pakistani capital, 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 340 people killed 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.
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. On the India side of the border, at least 39 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an army spokesman.
In Pakistan's northwestern district of Mansehra, the police chief, Ataullah Khan Wazir, said authorities pulled the bodies of 250 students from the wreckage of one girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.
Mansehra 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 officials 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 sent an emergency coordination team to Pakistan to help handle relief efforst.
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 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.
–––
Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00035972 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 00:17:03 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D42J680 10-08-2005 16:18:33 BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt:Quake razes villa
aD8D430080 10-08-2005 16:45:53 BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional:Quake razes
aD8D444L07 10-08-2005 18:04:04 BC-South Asia-Quake, 1st Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D488G00 10-08-2005 22:45:20 BC-South Asia-Quake, 2nd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48B809 10-08-2005 22:51:12 BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48FD86 10-08-2005 23:00:05 BC-South Asia-Quake, 4th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D490R07 10-08-2005 23:37:16 BC-South Asia-Quake, 5th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D49JFO0 10-09-2005 00:17:03* BC-South Asia-Quake, 6th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D4BMN80 10-09-2005 02:40:29 F BC-South Asia-Quake, 7th Ld-Writethru:Sout
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BC-South Asia-Quake, 6th Ld-Writethru,1207
Quake in South Asia kills more than 18,000 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Eds: LEADS throughout to upgrade attribution to Sultan, raise locator for Mansehra, update with 215 Pakistani soldiers and 39 Indian soldiers killed.
%photo(AP Photos ISL101, 106, 115, 240 SRI103 URI104%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – A powerful earthquake flattened entire villages of mud-brick homes, triggered landslides and toppled a 10-story apartment building on Saturday, killing more than 18,000 people as it devastated a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor rose sharply Sunday 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. Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman said early Sunday that more than 18,000 had been killed – 17,000 of them in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.
"The death toll is gradually rising," Sultan told The Associated Press. He said authorities had counted the bodies.
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, and many people spent the night in the open.
The earthquake, which struck just before 9 a.m. Saturday, 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, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
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, and was followed by 22 aftershocks, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor.
"It is a national tragedy," Sultan said earlier. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."
In Mansehra, about 90 miles northwest of the Pakistani capital, 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 340 people killed 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.
Some 215 Pakistani soldiers died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, Sultan said. On the India side of the border, at least 39 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman.
In Pakistan's northwestern district of Mansehra, the police chief, Ataullah Khan Wazir, said authorities there pulled the bodies of 250 students from the wreckage of one girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.
Mansehra 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 officials 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 sent an emergency coordination team to Pakistan.
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 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.
–––
Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00035987 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 00:22:35 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D49M2O0 10-09-2005 00:22:35* BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional, 3rd Ld-Writ
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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r ibx
BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional, 3rd Ld-Writethru,1191
Quake razes villages, causes landslides, killing over 18,000 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Eds: LEADS throughout to upgrade attribution to Sultan, raise number of Pakistani soldiers killed to 215.
%photo(AP Photos ISL101, 106, 115, 240 SRI103 URI104%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – It began as a gentle swaying, but the ground's convulsions quickly grew wilder – shaking walls, roofs and floors. Within seconds, mud-brick homes buckled, bigger buildings pancaked, earth and rock slid down hillsides, burying the helpless.
The earthquake Saturday devastated a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, killing more than 18,000 people. The worst was in Pakistan, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and more than 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
Of the 18,000 dead in the 7.6-magnitude tremor, 17,000 were in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered and where rescuers struggled to dig people from the wreckage, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, said early Sunday. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.
"The death toll is gradually rising," Sultan told The Associated Press. He said authorities had counted the bodies.
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.
"It is a national tragedy," Sultan said earlier. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."
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, and was followed by 22 aftershocks, including a magnitude 6.2 temblor.
In Mansehra, about 90 miles northwest of the Pakistani capital, 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 340 people killed 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.
Some 215 Pakistani soldiers died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, Sultan said. On the India side of the border, at least 39 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman.
In Pakistan's northwestern district of Mansehra, the police chief, Ataullah Khan Wazir, said authorities pulled the bodies of 250 students from the wreckage of one girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.
Mansehra 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 officials 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 sent an emergency coordination team to Pakistan to help handle relief efforst.
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 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.
–––
Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00036203 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 02:40:29 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D42J680 10-08-2005 16:18:33 BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt:Quake razes villa
aD8D430080 10-08-2005 16:45:53 BC-South Asia-Quake, Optional:Quake razes
aD8D444L07 10-08-2005 18:04:04 BC-South Asia-Quake, 1st Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D488G00 10-08-2005 22:45:20 BC-South Asia-Quake, 2nd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48B809 10-08-2005 22:51:12 BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld:Quake in South
aD8D48FD86 10-08-2005 23:00:05 BC-South Asia-Quake, 4th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D490R07 10-08-2005 23:37:16 BC-South Asia-Quake, 5th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D49JFO0 10-09-2005 00:17:03 BC-South Asia-Quake, 6th Ld-Writethru:Quak
aD8D4BMN80 10-09-2005 02:40:29*F BC-South Asia-Quake, 7th Ld-Writethru:Sout
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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BC-South Asia-Quake, 7th Ld-Writethru,1273
South Asia quake kills more than 18,000 in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Eds: UPDATES to INSERT in graf 2 report by private Pakistani television station that Pakistani death toll has risen to 25,000, including casualties in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. No official confirmation yet.
%photo(AP Photos ISL101, 106, 115, 240 SRI103 URI104%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – A powerful earthquake flattened entire villages of mud-brick homes, triggered landslides and toppled a 10-story apartment building on Saturday, killing more than 18,000 people as it devastated a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
Pakistan's private Aaj television reported the Pakistani death toll had jumped to 25,000. But the report, which included casualties in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, gave no source for its figures and there was no immediate confirmation from Pakistani officials but they have said the toll will rise.
The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor rose sharply Sunday 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.
Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman said early Sunday that more than 18,000 had been killed – 17,000 of them in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.
"The death toll is gradually rising," Sultan told The Associated Press. He said authorities had counted the bodies.
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, and many people spent the night in the open.
The earthquake, which struck just before 9 a.m. Saturday, 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, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
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, and was followed by 22 aftershocks, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor.
"It is a national tragedy," Sultan said earlier. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."
In Mansehra, about 90 miles northwest of the Pakistani capital, 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 340 people killed 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.
Some 215 Pakistani soldiers died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, Sultan said. On the India side of the border, at least 39 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman.
In Pakistan's northwestern district of Mansehra, the police chief, Ataullah Khan Wazir, said authorities there pulled the bodies of 250 students from the wreckage of one girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.
Mansehra 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 officials 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 sent an emergency coordination team to Pakistan.
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 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.
–––
Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
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Doc: 00036401 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 05:53:07 2005
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aD8D4EH0O0 10-09-2005 05:53:07* BC-APNewsAlert:Interior minister confirms
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – Interior minister confirms 19,136 people died in Saturday's quake in northwestern Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
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Doc: 00036457 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 06:37:20 2005
Alert Categories: dam
Profiler Categories: Damages
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D4F5O02 10-09-2005 06:37:20*F BC-South Asia-Quake-Toll:Pakistani governm
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Pakistani government raises country's earthquake death toll to more than 19,000
BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistan's government raised the country's death toll on Sunday to 19,136 people with 42,397 injured in the earthquake that struck Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and nearby areas in the northwest.
Almost all the deaths, 17,388, were in the divided and disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir where the 7.6-magnitude quake on Saturday was centered, Interior minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said. The worst-hit city in Pakistani Kashmir was its capital, Muzaffarabad, where 11,000 died, Sherpao said.
India reported 360 killed and 900 injured in the quake which and four people were killed in Afghanistan.
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Doc: 00036467 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 06:45:50 2005
Alert Categories: bus dam def kcr med mun ter tra trn
Profiler Categories: Business Crime Damages Defense Medical
Municipal Terrorism Transportation Travel
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
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aD8D4I2580 10-09-2005 09:54:29 BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld-Writethru:Paki
aD8D4K7RO8 10-09-2005 12:23:11 S BC-South Asia-Quake, 4th Ld-Writethru:Paki
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Pakistani villagers desperately search for survivors after quake kills more than 19,000
Eds: INCORPORATES BC-South Asia-Quake-Toll
%photo(AP Photos%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By SADAQAT JAN
Associated Press Writer
BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) – Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands on Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake killed more than 19,000 in a swath of destruction across India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Near the ruins of the school, at least a dozen bodies were strewn on the streets of Balakot, a devastated village of about 30,000 just west of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir where the 7.6-magnitude earthquake that struck South Asia shortly before 9 a.m. Saturday was centered.
The worst destruction was in and near the Pakistani side of the divided and disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. In that mountainous area, the quake flattened dozens of villages and towns, crushing schools and mud-brick houses. The dead included 250 girls at a school razed to the ground and more than 200 Pakistani soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
Pakistan's death toll jumped on Sunday to more than 19,000.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said 19,136 people were killed, 17,388 of them in Pakistani Kashmir. The worst-hit city in Pakistani Kashmir was its capital, Muzaffarabad, where 11,000 died, Sherpao said. He also said 42,397 were injured.
Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas on Sunday. But landslides and rain hindered rescue efforts, blocking roads to some remote areas.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf appealed to the international community to help with relief efforts. He appealed for medicine, tents, cargo helicopters and financial assistance. The United States, the United Nations, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Japan, German and India all offered assistance.
"We do seek international assistance. We have enough manpower but we need financial support ... to cope with the tragedy," Musharraf said. He said supplies were needed "to reach out to the people in far-flung and cut-off areas." The president spoke in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad, before leaving on a tour of devastated areas.
The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, an area stretching across some 625 miles across. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed.
"We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history," chief army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said.
Authorities in India reported 360 deaths and 900 people injured, while Afghanistan reported four killed.
On Sunday, Pakistani military helicopters ferried troops and supplies to some hard-hit areas. But there was no sign of government help in Balakot, in the North West Frontier Province about 60 miles north of Islamabad. The quake leveled the village's main bazaar, crushing shoppers and strewing gas cylinders, bricks, tomatoes and onions on the streets.
Injured people covered by shawls lay in the street, waiting for medical care. Residents carried bodies on wooden planks. The corpses of four children, aged between four and six, lay under a sheet of corrugated iron. Relatives said they were trying to find sheets to wrap the bodies.
"We don't have anything to bury them with," said a cousin, Saqib Swati.
Nearby, Faizan Farooq, a 19-year-old business administration student, stood outside the rubble of his four-story school, where at least 250 pupils were feared trapped. Dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers but many without any tools, pulled at the debris and carried away bodies.
Farooq said that he could hear children under the rubble crying for help immediately after the disaster on Saturday.
"Now there's no sign of life," he said. "We can't do this without the army's help. Nobody has come here to help us."
A 40-year-old man at the scene wept. He said four of his children were buried in the debris.
Elsewhere in Balakot, shopowner Mohammed Iqbal said two primary schools, one for boys and one for girls, also collapsed. More than 500 students were feared dead.
In Pakistan's northwestern district of Mansehra, police chief Ataullah Khan Wazir said authorities there pulled 250 bodies from the wreckage of one girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.
Mansehra 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 officials told The Associated Press in 2002.
Some 215 Pakistani soldiers died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, Sultan said. On the India side of the border, at least 39 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman.
The only serious damage reported in Pakistan's capital was the collapse of a 10-story apartment building, where at least 24 people were killed and dozens were injured. Doctors said the dead included an Egyptian diplomat, and the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said two Japanese were killed.
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.
On Sunday, Pakistani rescue teams pulled two survivors from the rubble of the apartment building. The boy and woman, who were listed in stable condition, told doctors others were trapped alive and calling for help beneath the debris.
"These people heard voices and cries during the whole night," said Adil Inayat, a doctor at PIMS hospital in Islamabad.
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, and was followed by 22 aftershocks within 24 hours, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor. Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing tremors could cause more damage, and many people spent the night in the open.
India, a longtime rival of Pakistan, offered help and condolences in a gesture of cooperation. The nuclear rivals have been pursuing peace after fighting three wars since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.
India reported at least 360 people killed and 900 injured when the quake collapsed houses and other buildings in Jammu-Kashmir state. Most of the deaths were in the border towns of Uri, Tangdar and Punch and in the city of Srinagar, said B.B. Vyas, the state's divisional commissioner.
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. Three others also died.
A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, said the quake was felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but there were no reports of damage at bases around the country.
An eight-member U.N. team of top disaster coordination officials was due to arrive in Islamabad on Sunday to plan the global body's response.
President Bush offered condolences, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was ready to help.
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Doc: 00036469 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 06:49:00 2005
Alert Categories: dam
Profiler Categories: Damages
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aD8D4FB700 10-09-2005 06:49:00*F BC-Quake-List:Major earthquakes around the
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Major earthquakes around the world over the past 80 years
With BC-South Asia-Quake
By The Associated Press
A list of deadly quakes during the past 80 years:
– Oct. 7, 2005: Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, magnitude 7.6; more than 19,000 killed.
– Dec. 26, 2004: Indian Ocean, magnitude 9; more than 174,000 people killed, another 106,000 missing.
– Dec. 26, 2003: Southeastern Iran, Bam, magnitude 6.5; more than 26,000 killed.
– May 21, 2003: Northern Algeria, magnitude 6.8; nearly 2,300 killed.
– March 25, 2002: Northern Afghanistan, magnitude 5.8; up to 1,000 killed.
– Jan. 26, 2001: India, magnitude 7.9; at least 2,500 killed. Estimates put death toll as high as 13,000.
– Sept. 21, 1999: Taiwan, magnitude 7.6; 2,400 killed.
– Aug. 17, 1999: Western Turkey, magnitude 7.4; 17,000 killed.
– Jan. 25, 1999: Western Colombia, magnitude 6; 1,171 killed.
– May 30, 1998: Northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan, magnitude 6.9; as many as 5,000 killed.
– Jan. 17, 1995: Kobe, Japan, magnitude 7.2; more than 6,000 killed.
– Sept. 30, 1993: Latur, India, magnitude 6.0; as many as 10,000 killed.
– June 21, 1990: Northwest Iran, magnitude 7.3-7.7; 50,000 killed.
– Dec. 7, 1988: Northwest Armenia, magnitude 6.9; 25,000 killed.
– Sept. 19, 1985: Central Mexico, magnitude 8.1; more than 9,500 killed.
– Sept. 16, 1978: Northeast Iran, magnitude 7.7; 25,000 killed.
– July 28, 1976: Tangshan, China; magnitude 7.8-8.2; 240,000 killed.
– Feb. 4, 1976: Guatemala, magnitude 7.5; 22,778 killed.
– Feb. 29, 1960: Southwest Atlantic coast in Morocco; magnitude 5.7; some 12,000 killed, town of Agadir destroyed.
– Dec. 26, 1939: Erzincan province, Turkey, magnitude 7.9; 33,000 killed.
– Jan. 24, 1939: Chillan, Chile, magnitude 8.3; 28,000 killed.
– May 31, 1935: Quetta, India, magnitude 7.5; 50,000 killed.
– Sept. 1, 1923: Tokyo-Yokohama, Japan, magnitude 8.3; at least 140,000 killed.
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aD8D4G7U80 10-09-2005 07:50:17* BC-APNewsAlert:The top official in Pakista
Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) – The top official in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir says more than 30,000 people were killed in Saturday's quake.
BC-South Asia-Quake, 1st Ld,0207
URGENT
Pakistani villagers desperately search for survivors after quake kills more than 30,000
Eds: UPDATES with official saying Pakistan death toll has topped 30,000
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
AP Photos
By SADAQAT JAN
Associated Press Writer
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Doc: 00036547 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 08:08:20 2005
Alert Categories: dam def
Profiler Categories: Damages Defense
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aD8D4GVN00 10-09-2005 08:41:00 BC-South Asia-Quake, 2nd Ld-Writethru:Paki
aD8D4I2580 10-09-2005 09:54:29 BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld-Writethru:Paki
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aD8D4NLH8A 10-09-2005 16:17:09 F BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt, 5th Ld-Writethru
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BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) – Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake killed more than 30,000 people in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir alone.
Saturday's magnitude-7.6 quake also struck India and Afghanistan, which reported hundreds dead.
"I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.
Pakistan's army called the earthquake the country's worst-ever disaster and appealed for urgent help. Rival India, the United States, the United Nations, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Japan and Germany all offered assistance.
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Doc: 00036595 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 08:41:00 2005
Alert Categories: bus dam def kcr med mun ter tra trn
Profiler Categories: Business Crime Damages Defense Medical
Municipal Terrorism Transportation Travel
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
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aD8D4NLH8A 10-09-2005 16:17:09 F BC-South Asia-Quake, Bjt, 5th Ld-Writethru
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Pakistani villagers desperately search for survivors after quake kills more than 30,000
Eds: RESTORES pvs; UPDATES India's death toll
%photo(AP Photos%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By SADAQAT JAN
Associated Press Writer
BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) – Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake. Pakistani officials said the death toll ranged between nearly 20,000 and 30,000.
Pakistan called Saturday's magnitude-7.6 earthquake the country's worst on record, and the president appealed for urgent help. Rival India, which reported more than 465 dead, offered assistance.
"I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.
In mountainous Kashmir, the quake flattened dozens of villages and towns, crushing schools and mud-brick houses. The dead included 250 girls at a school razed to the ground and more than 200 Pakistani soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed.
"We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history," chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said.
Officials said Balakot was one of the hardest-hit areas. Near the ruins of one collapsed school, at least a dozen bodies were strewn on the streets of the devastated village of about 30,000. At least 250 pupils were feared trapped inside the rubble of the four-story school.
Dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers but many without tools, pulled at the debris and carried away bodies. Faizan Farooq, a 19-year-old business administration student, said he had heard children under the rubble crying for help immediately after Saturday's disaster.
"Now there's no sign of life," he said Sunday. "We can't do this without the army's help. Nobody has come here to help us."
Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas Sunday. However, landslides and rain hindered rescue efforts, blocking roads to some remote areas.
There was no sign of government help in Balakot, in the North West Frontier Province about 60 miles north of Islamabad. The quake leveled the village's main bazaar, crushing shoppers and strewing gas cylinders, bricks, tomatoes and onions on the streets.
Injured people covered by shawls lay in the street, waiting for medical care. Residents carried bodies on wooden planks. The corpses of four children, aged between 4 and 6, lay under a sheet of corrugated iron. Relatives said they were trying to find sheets to wrap the bodies.
"We don't have anything to bury them with," said a cousin, Saqib Swati.
Elsewhere in Balakot, shop owner Mohammed Iqbal said two primary schools, one for boys and one for girls, also collapsed. More than 500 students were feared dead.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf appealed to the international community for medicine, tents, cargo helicopters and financial assistance.
"We do seek international assistance. We have enough manpower but we need financial support ... to cope with the tragedy," Musharraf said.
Supplies were needed "to reach out to the people in far-flung and cut-off areas," he said in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad, before leaving on a tour of devastated areas.
The United States, the United Nations, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Japan and Germany all offered assistance.
In Pakistan's northwestern district of Mansehra, police chief Ataullah Khan Wazir said Saturday that authorities there pulled 250 bodies from the rubble of a girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.
Mansehra 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 officials told The Associated Press in 2002.
At least 215 Pakistani soldiers died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, Sultan said. On the India side of the border, at least 54 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman.
The only serious damage reported in Islamabad was the collapse of a 10-story apartment building, where at least 24 people were killed and dozens were injured. Doctors said the dead included an Egyptian diplomat, and the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said two Japanese were killed.
On Sunday, Pakistani rescue teams pulled two survivors from the rubble. The boy and woman, who were listed in stable condition, told doctors others were trapped alive and calling for help beneath the debris.
"These people heard voices and cries during the whole night," said Adil Inayat, a doctor at PIMS hospital in Islamabad.
The death toll in India rose Sunday to 465 after rescue workers and soldiers pulled out 90 more bodies in the frontier Tangdar region, 65 miles north of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. Most of the deaths were in the border towns of Uri, Tangdar and Punch and Srinagar, where the quake collapsed houses and buildings.
Afghanistan reported four killed.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of Islamabad in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir. That was followed by at least 22 aftershocks within 24 hours, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor. Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing more damage, and many people spent the night in the open.
India, a longtime rival of Pakistan, offered help and condolences in a gesture of cooperation. The nuclear rivals have been pursuing peace after fighting three wars since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.
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. Three others also died.
A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, said the quake was felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but there were no reports of damage at bases around the country.
An eight-member U.N. team of top disaster coordination officials was due to arrive in Islamabad on Sunday to plan the global body's response.
President Bush offered condolences, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was ready to help.
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Doc: 00036703 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 09:54:29 2005
*** Version history. (* this story, F final, S semifinal) ***
aD8D4F9NG2 10-09-2005 06:45:50 BC-South Asia-Quake:Pakistani villagers de
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aD8D4GVN00 10-09-2005 08:41:00 BC-South Asia-Quake, 2nd Ld-Writethru:Paki
aD8D4I2580 10-09-2005 09:54:29* BC-South Asia-Quake, 3rd Ld-Writethru:Paki
aD8D4K7RO8 10-09-2005 12:23:11 S BC-South Asia-Quake, 4th Ld-Writethru:Paki
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Copyright 2005 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Pakistani villagers desperately search for survivors after quake kills more than 30,000
Eds: LEADS thruout to UPDATE with USGS now saying magnitude was 7.7, Musharraf comments to BBC about needing cargo helicopters to reach remote areas, villagers in India blocking roads to protest what they said was slow government response; TRIMS; UPDATES photos
%photo(AP Photos ISL103, 116; XBKB102-108, 118-120; RMX101-111; XDY101-104%)
AP Graphics SOUTH ASIA QUAKES, PAKISTAN QUAKE, QUAKE MECHANICS, PLATE TECTONICS
By SADAQAT JAN
Associated Press Writer
BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) – Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake. Pakistani officials said the death toll ranged between nearly 20,000 and 30,000.
Pakistan's president called Saturday's magnitude-7.7 earthquake the country's worst on record and appealed for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote areas. Rival India, which reported more than 465 dead, offered assistance.
"I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.
In mountainous Kashmir, the quake flattened dozens of villages and towns, crushing schools and mud-brick houses. The dead included 250 girls at a school razed to the ground and more than 200 Pakistani soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed.
"We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history," chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said.
Officials said Balakot was one of the hardest-hit areas. Near the ruins of one collapsed school, at least a dozen bodies were strewn on the streets of the devastated village of about 30,000. At least 250 pupils were feared trapped inside the rubble of the four-story school.
Dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers but many without tools, pulled at the debris and carried away bodies. Faizan Farooq, a 19-year-old business administration student, said he had heard children under the rubble crying for help immediately after Saturday's disaster.
"Now there's no sign of life," he said Sunday. "We can't do this without the army's help. Nobody has come here to help us."
Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas Sunday. However, landslides and rain hindered rescue efforts, blocking roads to some remote areas.
There was no sign of government help in Balakot, in the North West Frontier Province about 60 miles north of Islamabad. The quake leveled the village's main bazaar, crushing shoppers and strewing gas cylinders, bricks, tomatoes and onions on the streets.
Injured people covered by shawls lay in the street, waiting for medical care. Residents carried bodies on wooden planks. The corpses of four children, aged between 4 and 6, lay under a sheet of corrugated iron. Relatives said they were trying to find sheets to wrap the bodies.
"We don't have anything to bury them with," said a cousin, Saqib Swati.
Elsewhere in Balakot, shop owner Mohammed Iqbal said two primary schools, one for boys and one for girls, also collapsed. More than 500 students were feared dead.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf appealed to the international community for medicine, tents, cargo helicopters and financial assistance.
"We do seek international assistance. We have enough manpower but we need financial support ... to cope with the tragedy," Musharraf said in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad, before touring devastated areas.
He told the British Broadcasting Corp. the only way to reach many far-flung areas was by helicopter because roads were buried by landslides.
"Our helicopter resources are limited," he told the BBC. "We need massive cargo helicopter support."
The president said he knew of as many as 20,000 people killed, but "I wouldn't be able to make an accurate assessment for days."
The United States, the United Nations, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Japan and Germany all offered assistance. An eight-member U.N. team of top disaster coordination officials arrived in Islamabad on Sunday to plan the global body's response.
In Pakistan's northwestern district of Mansehra, police chief Ataullah Khan Wazir said Saturday that authorities there pulled 250 bodies from the rubble of a girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.
Mansehra 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 officials told The Associated Press in 2002.
At least 215 Pakistani soldiers died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, Sultan said. On the India side of the border, at least 54 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman.
The only serious damage reported in Islamabad was the collapse of a 10-story apartment building, where at least 24 people were killed and dozens were injured. Doctors said the dead included an Egyptian diplomat, and the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said two Japanese were killed.
On Sunday, Pakistani rescue teams pulled two survivors from the rubble. The boy and woman, who were listed in stable condition, told doctors others were trapped alive and calling for help beneath the debris.
"These people heard voices and cries during the whole night," said Adil Inayat, a doctor at PIMS hospital in Islamabad.
The death toll in India rose Sunday to 465 after rescue workers and soldiers pulled out 90 more bodies in the frontier Tangdar region, 65 miles north of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. Most of the deaths were in the border towns of Uri, Tangdar and Punch and Srinagar, where the quake collapsed houses and buildings.
Hundreds of angry villagers blocked roads in the region Sunday, protesting the slow pace of rescue efforts. On the main road between Baramulla and the border town of Uri, locals demanded that journalists and soldiers with aid go to their mountainside villages.
"Everything is destroyed – the ground shook and took everything down," said Syad Hassan, pointing toward the peaks surrounding the valley road. "All the government people, the press people, they are just driving past."
Most people in Jammu-Kashmir spent the night in the open, lighting fires with wood pulled out from fallen houses to keep warm in the near-freezing temperatures.
Afghanistan reported four killed.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of Islamabad, six miles below the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir. That was followed by at least 22 aftershocks within 24 hours, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor. Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing more damage, and many people spent the night in the open.
India, a longtime rival of Pakistan, offered help and condolences in a gesture of cooperation. The nuclear rivals have been pursuing peace after fighting three wars since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.
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. Three others also died.
The U.S. military said the quake was felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but there were no reports of damage at bases elsewhere.
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Recently opened 'Peace Bridge' between India and Pakistan severely damaged by earthquake
With BC-South Asia-Quake
By MUJTABA ALI AHMAD
Associated Press Writer
SRINAGAR, India (AP) – The newly reopened "Peace Bridge" linking the Indian and Pakistani portions of disputed Kashmir nearly collapsed during the South Asia earthquake, a blow to a symbol of the recent thawing of decades of tensions, officials said Sunday.
Damage to the span will disrupt bus service that was restored after a nearly 60-year lull between Srinagar, summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, and Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, said an Indian army spokesman, Col. J.S. Juneja.
"Two piers of the Peace Bridge have been damaged on the Pakistani side and has sunk there. It is now unoperational," he said. "I would assume that even crossing the bridge by foot would be hazardous."
The white-colored metal bridge underwent repairs this year to fix damage sustained in the 1947-48 war between the two neighbors shortly after the new nation of Pakistan was carved out of the former British India.
Closed since that war, the reopened bridge became an icon of the advances in recent peace initiatives by India and Pakistan that have significantly reduced tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals, which have fought three wars, including two over Kashmir.
The 1947-48 war ended with the Himalayan territory divided, separating thousands of families on both sides of a cease-fire line that became a de facto border.
Many families had tearful reunions when the 220-foot bridge reopened in April with the launch of bus runs once every two weeks between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad.
But the buses had not been driving over the weak structure. Passengers disembarked at each end and walked across, boarding another bus to complete their trips.
Juneja said there was very little possibility the bus service could use the route on its next scheduled run Oct. 20.
During British colonial rule, the 100-mile Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway was a major trade passage for the Kashmir Valley around Srinagar – bringing in oil, salt and other key supplies from Muzaffarabad and linking tens of thousands of families.
The narrow road climbs up the mountains on the Pakistani side until it joins the Jhellum River. It winds along the riverside for 45 miles until it reaches Muzaffarabad.
Juneja said the highway has been blocked at many places by landslides triggered by the quake. "Things don't look too good," he said.
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Pakistani villagers desperately search for survivors after quake kills more than 20,000
Eds: RECASTS, LEADS thruout to UPDATE with Pakistani officials saying nearly 20,000 bodies counted, 43,000 injured, U.S. helicopters arriving Monday, India death toll topping 600; TRIMS; UPDATES graphics
%photo(AP Photos ISL103, 116; XBKB102-108, 118-120; RMX101-111; XDY101-104%)
AP Graphics MAJOR EARTHQUAKES
By SADAQAT JAN
Associated Press Writer
BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) – Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake killed more than 20,000.
Pakistani officials said the toll could go higher, and a provincial official in Kashmir said more than 30,000 died in that province alone.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf called Saturday's magnitude-7.7 earthquake the country's worst on record and appealed for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote areas cut off by landslides. Rival India, which reported more than 600 dead, offered assistance.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said American officials were determining what assistance could be provided. The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said Washington had not instructed it to provide help, while a NATO spokesman said the mission was not allowed to operate outside Afghanistan.
The prime minister said the United States was sending between six and eight transport helicopters Monday.
The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed.
"We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history," chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said.
In mountainous Kashmir, the quake flattened dozens of villages and towns, crushing schools and mud-brick houses. The dead included 250 girls at a school razed to the ground and more than 200 Pakistani soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
"I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.
Officials said Balakot, a village of about 30,000, was one of the hardest-hit areas. At least 250 pupils were feared trapped inside the rubble of the four-story school, and at least a dozen bodies were strewn on the streets.
Dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers but many without tools, pulled at the debris and carried away bodies. Faizan Farooq, a 19-year-old business administration student, said he heard children under the rubble crying for help immediately after Saturday's disaster.
"Now there's no sign of life," he said Sunday. "We can't do this without the army's help. Nobody has come here to help us."
Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas Sunday. However, landslides and rain hindered rescue efforts, blocking roads.
There was no sign of government help in Balakot, in the North West Frontier Province about 60 miles north of Islamabad. The quake leveled the main bazaar, crushing shoppers and strewing gas cylinders, bricks, tomatoes and onions on the streets.
Injured people covered by shawls lay in the street. Residents carried bodies on wooden planks. The corpses of four children, aged between 4 and 6, lay under a sheet of corrugated iron. Relatives said they were trying to find sheets to wrap the bodies.
"We don't have anything to bury them with," said a cousin, Saqib Swati.
Shop owner Mohammed Iqbal said two primary schools, one for boys and one for girls, also collapsed, and more than 500 students were feared dead.
Musharraf appealed to the international community for medicine, tents, cargo helicopters and financial assistance.
"We have enough manpower but we need financial support ... to cope with the tragedy," Musharraf said in Rawalpindi before touring devastated areas.
Musharraf said he knew of as many as 20,000 people killed, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told CNN about 43,000 people were injured.
Musharraf told the British Broadcasting Corp. the only way to reach many far-flung areas was by helicopter because roads were impassable.
"Our helicopter resources are limited," he told the BBC. "We need massive cargo helicopter support."
In Afghanistan, Col. James Yonts, spokesman for the 21,000-strong U.S.-led coalition force, said Washington had not given instructions to help.
Maj. Andrew Elmes, spokesman for NATO's 11,000-strong force, said it was outside the mission's mandate to operate beyond Afghanistan.
Offers of international assistance poured in, and an eight-member U.N. team of disaster coordination officials arrived in Islamabad.
In the northwestern district of Mansehra, police chief Ataullah Khan Wazir said Saturday that authorities pulled 250 bodies from the rubble of a girls' school in Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.
Mansehra was believed to be a hotbed of Islamic militant activity during the time the hard-line Taliban ruled Afghanistan. Al-Qaida operatives trained suicide squads at a camp there, Afghan and Pakistani officials told the AP in 2002.
At least 215 Pakistani soldiers died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, Sultan said. On India's side, at least 54 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman.
The most serious damage reported in Islamabad was the collapse of a 10-story apartment building, where at least 24 people were killed and dozens were injured. Doctors said the dead included an Egyptian diplomat, and the Japanese Foreign Ministry said two Japanese were killed.
On Sunday, Pakistani rescue teams pulled a boy and a women from the rubble. The survivors told doctors others were trapped alive and calling for help.
"These people heard voices and cries during the whole night," said Adil Inayat, a doctor at PIMS hospital in Islamabad.
The death toll in India crossed 600 Sunday after rescue workers recovered 90 more bodies in the frontier Tangdar region, 65 miles north of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. Most of the deaths were in the border towns Uri, Tangdar and Punch and Srinagar, where the quake collapsed houses and buildings.
Hundreds of angry villagers blocked roads in the region, protesting the slow pace of rescue efforts.
"Everything is destroyed – the ground shook and took everything down," Syad Hassan said. "All the government people, the press people, they are just driving past."
Most people in Jammu-Kashmir spent the cold night in the open, lighting fires with wood pulled from fallen houses.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of Islamabad, six miles below the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir. That was followed by at least 22 aftershocks within 24 hours, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor.
Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing more damage.
India offered help and condolences. The nuclear rivals have been pursuing peace after fighting three wars since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.
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. Three others also died.
The U.S. military said the quake was felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but no damages were reported at bases elsewhere.
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Buried in rubble of collapsed schools, many students among the dead
Eds: STANDS for Pakistan-Student's Ordeal on digest
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By SADAQAT JAN
Associated Press Writer
BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) – It was just before 9 a.m. and 17-year-old Uzair Mohammed Qureshi was reading his chemistry book as the ground began to shake. Seconds later, the roof caved in, showering Qureshi and his classmates with debris. He was one of the few to survive.
In just one small Himalayan town, three schools crumbled in the devastating earthquake that struck northern Pakistan on Saturday, burying hundreds of students.
Qureshi had been sitting with about 15 to 20 other students in a chemistry class at the Shaheen Commerce and Information Technology College when the temblor rattled the earth.
"My teacher had just left the classroom after finishing his lecture and I was reading a book when suddenly we felt a shock," Qureshi said Sunday. "Then, came another jolt and we ran toward the door to save our lives, but suddenly the roof collapsed."
"For minutes I thought I had died," he said, describing how he passed out. "But after gaining consciousness, I looked around and saw a friend of mine lying near me."
Qureshi's hands suffered deep cuts when hit by falling debris, but he climbed through a hole in the wall to safety, dragging his friend behind him. He said he believed the other students in his class were critically injured or killed.
The teenager's ordeal was not over. He rushed home but found only a pile of rubble. His parents and grandmother were dead.
A day after the disaster, he sat on the rubble of his school building, still in his school uniform because all his possessions were gone.
"There is nobody who can help me save my classmates," he said. "Is there anybody who can help me?"
Reports emerged Sunday in village after village of school buildings collapsing on top of students as the massive earthquake struck a remote region in Pakistan and India, killing more than 20,000 people.
In the northwestern district of Mansehra, police chief Ataullah Khan Wazir said Saturday that authorities pulled 250 bodies from the rubble of a girls' school in Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.
But Balakot, a town of about 30,000 people surrounded by pine trees on mountainsides and a snowcapped peak, was among the hardest-hit.
Of the college's 400 students, surviving residents said more than 250 were feared dead. With no sign of outside help coming, dozens of villagers pulled at the debris with sledgehammers or with their bare hands and carried away bodies.
"Now there's no sign of life," said Faizan Farooq, a 19-year-old business administration student. "We can't do this without the army's help. Nobody has come here to help us."
Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas Sunday. However, landslides and rain hindered rescue efforts, blocking roads.
Two state-run primary schools, one for boys and one for girls, also collapsed in Balakot, about 60 miles north of Islamabad, and locals believed hundreds of students were dead inside.
At the girl's school, a line of 10 bodies was laid out on the ground, and townspeople occasionally pulled another corpse from the rubble.
Farooq Khan, 50, a Pashtun tribesman with a thick black beard and white prayer cap, sat crying on the ruins. A Pakistan national flag that had fallen from a pole in the schoolyard lay on the broken concrete.
Khan said he'd rushed from the Balakot bazaar to the school straight after the quake and rescued his 5-year-old daughter Sahria on Saturday, spotting her near the surface of the rubble and pulling her to safety.
But on Sunday, he was still looking for his 6-year-old daughter Amna who also attended the school.
"I don't know whether she's dead or alive," Khan said. "God, give her life back to me."
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Quake tragedy gives India, Pakistan chance to come closer but goodwill is temporary
%photo(AP Photos XMS102, PAR152%)
By VIJAY JOSHI
Associated Press Writer
NEW DELHI (AP) – Tragedies have a way of bringing people together, even adversaries.
Saturday's devastating earthquake in the disputed territory of Kashmir, which joined nuclear rivals Pakistan and India in a common grief, offered them a chance to shed past hostilities and make peace. But some analysts said that may be wishful thinking.
Within hours of the quake, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf to offer relief and rescue assistance to the country hardest hit by the temblor that killed more than 20,000 people.
Musharraf told CNN he was considering Singh's offer and would ask for "whatever we need," but cautioned that it may not be easy. "You do understand there is a little bit of sensitivity there," he said.
Since Pakistan's creation from British colonial India in 1947, the two neighboring countries have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir that left the Himalayan region divided between them by a cease-fire line.
On Saturday, deaths visited on both sides of that de-facto border, with between 20,000 and 30,000 deaths on the Pakistani side and 650 in Indian Kashmir.
During their six-minute conversation, Singh and Musharraf agreed that their envoys would coordinate disaster relief operations, an Indian official said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity because government rules do not authorize officials below minister level to give their names.
To N.M. Prusty, the head of emergency relief at the international aid agency CARE's India office, this is a golden opportunity.
"The mutual help in humanitarian crisis will be the most powerful confidence building measure in the history of India-Pakistan relationship," he told The Associated Press.
"History shows that at the time of natural disasters we have come together in this region. This is an opportunity when both India and Pakistan can forget their differences," he said.
Prusty's optimism stemmed from the peace brought to the Indonesian province of Aceh by another tragedy – the Dec. 26 tsunami. Faced with unprecedented death and destruction, separatist rebels in Aceh and the Indonesian government agreed to stop fighting and forged a peace accord.
In Sri Lanka, another country devastated by the tsunami, Tamil Tiger rebels and the Sinhalese government also joined hands to help shelter and feed survivors. But their peace was short-lived: the Tamil Tigers last month assassinated the country's foreign minister.
Ajai Sahni, the head of the Institute for Conflict Management think tank in New Delhi, was less optimistic about the prospects for permanent peace between India and Pakistan as a result of the earthquake.
"The negotiating table decides the power equation. That equation of power is not going to change by an earthquake. Nothing is decided by goodwill," he told AP.
"I don't think there will be any kind of long-term impact. There will be some symbolism. We will pretend to give some aid, they will express their gratitude. That's about it," Sahni said.
Still, the earthquake gave the two countries the opportunity to test some recent confidence building measures reached during the numerous rounds of the peace talks.
On Saturday, India's Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran used for the first time a newly installed telephone hot line – the fruit of months of painstaking negotiations – to speak with his Pakistani counterpart, Riaz Mohammed Khan, to convey sympathy and offers of aid.
Top military commanders in Kashmir also used a telephone hot line to offer sympathies for the soldiers killed in landslides. Dozens of soldiers on both sides were among the dead.
Symbolism also was on display from Israel, which offered aid to predominantly Muslim Pakistan, a reflection of Musharraf's recent overtures to the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, tensions continued. India accuses Pakistan of harboring Kashmiri militants fighting for independence or merger with Pakistan. Militant activity has come down in recent months in line with the peace efforts but hasn't ended.
Col. J.S. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman, said eight suspected militants were shot to death Sunday when they tried to sneak into Indian Kashmir from Pakistani Kashmir.
"Unfortunately when the Indian army is trying to provide earthquake relief, these attempts at infiltration are taking place," said Juneja. "But our guard is not down."
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Doc: 00037557 DB: research–d–2005–4 Date: Sun Oct 9 16:17:09 2005
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Rescuers struggle to reach survivors as quake death toll rises
Eds: AMs. UPDATES with USGS revising magnitude to 7.6
%photo(AP Photos XBKB102, 106, 115; XMK106; RMX106%)
AP Graphic MAJOR EARTHQUAKES
By SADAQAT JAN
Associated Press Writer
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AP) – Rescuers struggled to reach remote, mountainous areas Sunday after Pakistan's worst-ever earthquake wiped out entire village