ISLAMABAD, Oct 10: Most victims of Saturday’s worst earthquake awaited both human and heavenly aid on the third day of the disaster on Monday as the government-estimated death toll from the stricken districts of the NWFP and Azad Kashmir crossed 20,000.
The Azad Kashmir capital Muzaffarabad and Bagh town to the southeast appeared to be the worst sufferers from Saturday morning’s quake that measured 7.6 on the Richter scale and also rocked other parts of Pakistan as well as neighbouring India and Afghanistan.
While quake sufferers and politicians complained of absence of any government help in villages and its slow arrival in cities, the federal cabinet set up four committees to supervise relief, rescue and rehabilitation of the quake victims.
Because of widespread destruction of houses, many among an estimated stricken population of four million were destined to spend their third night after the quake in the open or under make-shift shelters because no tents had arrived and a rainfall and hailstorm in villages near Muzaffarabad had made the weather chilly.
While waiting for government relief, people also prayed for an end to frequent quake aftershocks that often sparked fears of more disaster and even forced residents in cities like Islamabad to stay in lawns or streets rather than sleep inside their homes.
Nearly 150 aftershocks had been recorded until Monday evening since the main quake hit the country at 8.52am on Saturday.
VARYING DEATH TOLLS: Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao put the death toll so far at 20,745 while updating a special cabinet meeting about domestic and international relief efforts, compared to an estimate of over 30,000 given on Sunday by UN assistant resident representative in Islamabad Zafar Iqbal.
However, other unofficial estimates, including those by private television channels, spoke of figures as high as 50,000 on the ground that information from remote areas had not yet arrived because of disrupted telephone and road communications.
The government said about 42,000 people had been injured by the quake.
CITY OF DEATH: Azad Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat said over 20,000 people had died in his territory alone as he told a private television channel how his administration was overwhelmed by the massive disaster.
“This was beyond our capacity but the army gave us support,” he said in Muzaffarabad, which has become a city of death after the killer earthquake razed houses, bazars, hotels and government buildings ranging from the territory’s main university and colleges to the local jail.
Residents said there was a total breakdown of government machinery that allowed most prisoners to escape as the jail building disintegrated but some of those on the death row died in their cells.
While the National Highway Authority said the Kohala-Muzaffarabad road and the road to Balakot in the NWFP had been reopened after remaining blocked by boulders and landslides since the quake, there was no official word about the fate of the key Neelum Valley road to the northeast of the Azad Kashmir capital.
Although army helicopters were ferrying the seriously injured people from Muzaffarabad and other towns to hospitals in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, no such aid was available to the injured stuck in villages.
People burying their dead looked expectantly at helicopters often flying over villages but there was no sign of any relief coming from the skies.
PEOPLE DYING: “People are dying as there is no food available in the villages,” Legislative Assembly member from Muzaffarabad Murtaza Gilani told a private television channel.
“There is no relief available in villages in the whole district.”
Similar situation was reported from some quake-stricken areas of the NWFP like Balakot and Garhi Habibullah where residents said many people were still lying under the debris of the fallen buildings.
“They are not (coming) for us,” one Balakot resident said angrily about helicopters flying over the areas, adding that the aircraft were only flying officials to assess the situation rather than bring aid.
“The situation here is beyond our imagination... (and) worse than our previous assessment,” PMs MNA Dr Firdaus Awan said in Muzaffarabad after she arrived there with relief goods.
The whole of Muzaffarabad and Bagh districts have been without electricity since the power lines from the NWFP were cut off by Saturday’s tremors.
FLATTENED HOUSES: It was a scene of flattened houses and mourning victims everywhere as this correspondent visited some villages in the Khawara area of Muzaffarabad district after the quake.
There was no government machinery available as people buried their dead or struggled to extricate their belongings from the debris of their fallen houses.
Hardly any of the houses built with stone walls and corrugated iron sheet roofs was intact in the area, which, however, escaped too many human casualties because many residents got out with the first tremor or were already out at work in the usual maize harvesting season. But many children in schools were killed.
About 230 children died at Hans-chowki on the border between Muzaffarabad and Bagh districts, according to a local forest official.
Twenty-two children were killed at Maniasa in Bagh district, residents said. Eleven more were killed at Puthian in the Danna area of Muzaffarabad district and an unspecified number at Awera Umar Khan, residents said. They said local rural markets ran out of the traditional white Latha cloth for burial.
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