NEELUM VALLEY, Oct 23: A huge chunk of the mountain ridge plummets to the angry Neelum river valley below as six battalions of the army’s engineering unit battle nature to reach the desperate earthquake survivors.

Using picks, shovels, bulldozers and dynamite, Brigadier General Inamul Haq’s 5,000 men have been working non-stop to open a key supply route amid warnings that many of the 3.3 million people left homeless by the massive October 8 earthquake could die of the cold and disease.

The primary mission is to provide access for aid agencies to bring supplies by land and complement relief missions by the overburdened and limited number of helicopters.

“We are racing against time. I wish the day (had) 48 hours,” Haq tells journalists who accompanied an army convoy on Saturday that delivered water and other supplies near what was left of Khansar, a village in Neelum Valley about 10 kilometres north of Muzaffarabad and near the epicentre of the 7.6 magnitude quake.

What was once a “paradise valley,” as Haq calls it, is now a wasteland. About six peaks of the mountain range were totally crushed, burying entire communities and changing the landscape of this part of Kashmir.

The verdant greens that once covered the mountains have been replaced by loose brown earth and grey boulders that crushed vehicles like tin cans.

Entire families walking along the mountain pass carrying bags of food and supplies on their backs add to the desolate scene. Others have simply died of walking due to the cold and hastily been buried in shallow roadside graves adorned with flowers.

Springs and brooks that provided drinking water have dried up, village after village buried by boulders. Even Haq’s headquarters has been erased off the map.

“We used to play cricket there. This used to be a camp full of life,” he says halfway through the journey, as the two-truck convoy passes a compound that has been converted into a tent city.

“Our primary mission now is to restore vital lifelines. And it is not easy because we are battling with nature.”

He cranks the gear of the four by four jeep, pointing to an unstable pile of debris on the mountainside that is beginning to cascade. “You see, it is constantly shifting.”

The daunting mission is to clear a 60-kilometre stretch of road from debris and finally give aid agencies and relief organizations access to isolated villages. So far the troops have only cleared less than 10 kilometre, two weeks after the disaster.

With temperatures dropping daily and thousands of villagers risking their lives trekking along treacherous footpaths, Haq is worried that many more could die.

“Many of these sons of the earth have fallen off the mountain-side trying to bypass the landslides. And these are already people who know the mountains very well,” he says.