Thousands await aid in freezing condition

[Naveed Yaseen]

KAN BANGLA (October 31 2008): Veiled mothers huddled with feverish babies in ruined villages of Balochistan on Thursday as sickness started to bite among earthquake survivors, who spent a freezing night beneath open skies. The death toll of the Wednesday's devastated earthquake toll rose to above 230.

In crumbled settlements that no aid workers had reached more than a day after the powerful quake, shivering residents begged for shelter, food, medicine - or just any help at all. "We had so few blankets to cover ourselves during the night that we only had one between six children," farmer Shahnawaz Khan told an AFP reporter who reached the remote village of Kan Bangla.

"The cold was so severe that some of our children have fallen ill," he said, pointing to some wailing infants as their mothers tried to provide them with warmth and comfort. Khan said some 20 people died when their mud-brick, straw-roofed homes collapsed in the 6.4-magnitude quake, but said they had not had any contact from Pakistani authorities or aid groups.

The village, which lies about 35 kilometres (25 miles) from the historic hill town of Ziarat, is one of a cluster in impoverished Balochistan province that were worst affected by the quake. Jaan Baba, an injured elderly man, showed makeshift tents that villagers had constructed with whatever they could scavenge from the shells of their houses. His own house was reduced to a pile of rubble.

"Some of the children do not even have sweaters or shoes and they are very gravely exposed to the weather," he told AFP. "Many of our villagers slept in the dry riverbed across the road. No one from the government or any rescue agencies have come to help us," Baba said. "We need shelter, blankets, food and medical help as soon as possible."

Most of the inhabitants eke out a living by working at apple farms for which Ziarat and its surrounding villages are famed in Pakistan, but Baba said they would now be busy just trying to survive.

In Kawaz, another badly hit village, survivors huddled around weak campfires. "It was so cold at night we thought we would freeze," villager Abdul Qadeer told AFP. "We have been waiting for help but we have no tent, no food, no medicine for my children."

Fears of further aftershocks kept many people in the open overnight even when their houses were still standing. A 6.2-magnitude tremor rocked Balochistan 13 hours after the initial, pre-dawn quake. The mayor of Ziarat district hit out at the government for failing to help survivors. "I am not satisfied with this operation," Dilawar Kakar told AFP.

"The help we expected from provincial and federal government, we are not getting. It is very slow." People from the village of Gogi, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) from Ziarat, decided not to wait for help, instead travelling to Quetta to draw attention to their plight.

"The problem is that Gogi is situated some five kilometres off the road. A few volunteers came and left but delivered nothing," villager Mohammad Mateen told reporters. As with the 2005 earthquake that killed 74,000 people in northern Pakistan, it was hard-line Islamist groups, some with militant links, that were among the first on the scene.

One of them, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, has been listed by the US as a "terrorist organisation" because it is the political wing of the outlawed Kashmiri militant group Laskhar-e-Taiba. Its officials were handing out blankets, food, milk and biscuits in the area as early as Wednesday night. "We do not believe in politics but to serve the people when they need it the most," Mohammad Qasim, a local Jamaat-ud-Dawa official told.

TOLL RISES TO ABOVE 230: The official death toll from the devastating earthquake a day ago climbed to more than 230 as the rescue workers searched for entombed survivors, officials said on Thursday. Many of the around 20,000 people left homeless spent the freezing night in the open as a series of mild aftershocks struck the northern parts of Balochistan that was rattled by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake just before dawn on Wednesday.

Various hospitals have received 149 bodies so far while 89 people were buried by the locals, a private TV channel quoted provincial police chief, Asif Nawaz Warraich, as saying. Warraich feared that the death toll might rise even further.

Locals assisted by government troops and paramilitary forces searched the rubble of flattened mud houses for survivors amid grim hopes of pulling anyone out alive more than 24 hours after the devastation. "After initial rescue efforts, we are now prioritising our operations to focus on the worst affected areas," said Major General Asif Nawaz, regional head of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force.

Nawaz said his troops were reaching out to the homeless people who were not leaving the site of their demolished huts. "We want them to relocate to tent villages set up to save them from the extreme chill," he added. Temperatures in the region dropped below freezing point through the night. Meanwhile Pakistan Army helicopters scoured mountains on Thursday for survivors of the earthquake as stunned survivors sifted through the rubble of their homes.

The quake has levelled about 1,500 mud-walled houses in Ziarat, triggering landslides and leaving nearly 15,000 people homeless. Efforts shifted from rescue to relief as hundreds of injured people were taken to hospitals. But a senior military official said searches were being conducted in the mountains above the valley for any stranded villagers.

Most of the valley's 50,000 people slept out in freezing temperatures on Wednesday night, either because their homes were destroyed or damaged, or because about 20 aftershocks, the biggest of 6.2 magnitude, left them too scared to sleep indoors. Maqbool Ahmed, 25, standing beside the rubble of his collapsed home in the badly hit village of Wam, said 14 members of his 18-member family were killed.

"My father, my mother, all of them are dead," said Ahmed, his dusty face streaked with tears. "I buried my entire family with these hands. We lost everything, not in minutes but in seconds," said Ahmed as the morning sun brought relief from the biting night-time cold.

The quake struck just over three years after 73,000 people were killed when a 7.6 magnitude quake hit Pakistan's northern mountains. Last year, the worst floods on record in Balochistan killed hundreds. The epicentre of Wednesday's quake was in Ziarat district, a picturesque valley and one of the province's main tourist spots.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva said estimates of the wounded ranged between 500 and 1,000. Two ICRC teams, including a surgical unit from Peshawar, had been sent to the area to assess needs. Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani called for international help.

"A major effort is needed to rehabilitate the affected people. We urge the international community and international agencies to help us," he told a news conference. A Pakistani relief official said the United States and China had promised $1 million each for rehabilitation work, while Japan and several other countries had also promised help.

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