BALAKOT, Oct 12: The cut and bruised little girl plays in the mud outside a tent where her surviving family members are sheltering after the earthquake that destroyed their home in northern Pakistan.

“I’m building a house,” three-year-old Khizra said, smiling at her mother, despite a cut cheek and swollen eye.

Widowed five days ago, her mother Zarfia has three children. One child, an 8-year-old boy, was dug out two days ago from one of the schools that collapsed in the town of Balakot during Saturday’s quake. Hundreds of fellow pupils were killed.

“Right now my only concern is getting food and water for my children,” said Ms Zarfia, who is sharing the tent with another family. “What happens later, I don’t know.”

Balakot was one of the towns worst hit by the quake and residents have complained about the slow pace of relief efforts.

With Chinese, French and Arab aid teams now helping the army in Balakot and relief supplies being distributed, the situation is more stable than in the first two days after the quake, when the town of 20,000 in the Northwest Frontier Province got virtually no outside help.

The hysteria has gone, replaced by more stoic grief, as people get on with the gruesome task of unearthing decomposing bodies and burying them as quickly and as respectfully as possible.

But there is still bitterness that help took so long to arrive.

Nursing a serious leg injury, Sharar Ahmed sits on the roof of what was once his house, along with a cousin, guarding against looters, who they say are nomads and mountain men who have come from the hills to loot the ruined city and grab supplies.

“Although this aid is coming, although the army is bringing aid, locals are not getting it because nomadic looters are coming in to rob us,” he said. “We’re not getting the things that we’re supposed to get.”

Faqir Mohammad, a spiritual leader, arrived on Wednesday to help from Swabi, a nearby district that was spared the worst. He led funeral prayers for some of the dead.

A man’s corpse recovered from the rubble was wrapped in white cloth and sprinkled with rose water while incense sticks were lit to take away the smell of rotting flesh.

“In these times people are not getting proper burials, but we can’t help it,” he said.

In normal times, Islamic tradition dictates that bodies are buried as soon as possible after death — usually within 24 hours.

There were half a dozen fresh graves in the tiny graveyard a day after the quake struck. On Wednesday, there were around 50, and locals were giving up their land for people to dig more.—Reuters