URI (India): Troops spearheaded rescue and relief efforts on Sunday in quake-hit Indian Kashmir as federal and state leaders toured the devastated region where more than 600 people died.
As the air force flew in aid, doctors and engineers, thousands of soldiers joined forces with local people in a desperate search for loved ones feared trapped under the rubble.
“I’ve come to share your grief,” ruling Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi told the crowds in Uri, one of the worst-hit spots. The region is near the Line of Control that divides Kashmir.
Some 300 people died in Uri alone out of a provisional death toll in Indian-occupied Kashmir of more than 600 people, according to a state official who declined to be named.
“We also have more than 1,000 injured in various hospitals,” he said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise as army rescue teams struggled to reach remote areas in the north of the Himalayan state.
Some 1,500 houses were destroyed in Uri by the quake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale. About 90 per cent of the families living in the town, which has a population of 30,000, were affected by the quake.
Gandhi, accompanied by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, army chief Joginder Jaswant Singh and state chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayed, visited the injured in makeshift medical camps as well as what remains of the town’s market.
Despite Gandhi’s reassurance, groups of angry Kashmiris protested the slow pace of relief work. Dozens of residents of Salamabad town, five kilometres from Uri, stopped vehicles on the main road to complain they had not received any help.
Cold rain blanketed the Himalayan region overnight as thousands sought makeshift shelter and scarce supplies of food and bedding.
Army officials admitted it would still take time for soldiers and relief workers to reach remote areas on foot such as Jabla village, which has been totally flattened.
Residents of the village said they had received no outside help. They pulled out two dozen dead from under the debris themselves since Saturday morning and sent many more to hospitals and were still digging to look for “many missing”.
“We slept in the open fields last night. There were no tents, no food,” said Shahnaz Banu, 13. “Everything is gone.”
Banu was getting ready for school, when her home started shaking.
“We all rushed out only to see our house going down in front of our own eyes. We had built it only two years back,” she said. “Without government help we will not be able to rebuild it.”
The Indian air force had deployed a fleet of cargo and transport planes as well as heavy-lift helicopters, a spokesman said. Army doctors and engineers flew in from Delhi to Srinagar.
A giant Illyushin-76 and six Antonov-32 aircraft were bringing heavy machinery into Kashmir, air force spokesman Squadron leader Mahesh Upasini told AFP.
“We are stepping up the operations to provide logistics and support directly to the people,” he said. “We have lost count of how many injured people we have removed to safety since yesterday (Saturday).”
Indian airforce spokesman squadron leader Mahesh Upasani said eight more aircraft were loaded and on standby.
The Indian army despatched more than 100 tonnes of food and 20 tonnes of medicine to Uri and neighbouring Tangdhar, defence spokesman Colonel J.S. Joneja told the Press Trust of India news agency.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced rehabilitation aid of one billion rupees (23 million dollars) for the state.
The quake had its epicentre just over the border in northern Pakistan where more than 19,000 perished.
Meanwhile, part of a bridge connecting Indian and Pakistani-zones of Kashmir collapsed at Kaman Post, 18 kilometres from Uri, Joneja said.
The bridge is part of the road that was opened in April after a gap of 60 years for a historic bus service connecting Srinagar with Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.—AFP
