Posted on 10/16/2005 9:48:13 AM PDT by SmithL
BAGH, Pakistan - Soldiers pulled a young girl alive from the rubble of her home Sunday, eight days after a mammoth earthquake killed tens of thousands of people and caused widespread damage in Pakistan's mountainous north and part of India.
The cheering report came as torrential rains halted relief flights into the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which was worst hit by the quake. A general warned that the cold and wet were likely to cause more deaths among the estimated 2 million people left homeless by the disaster.
The military said rescuers found the polio-stricken girl in a wrecked house in the village of Sanger near Balakot, a town in North West Frontier Province that was flattened.
"She is absolutely fine," said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the chief army spokesman. He said he did not know her age.
Two brothers of the girl, aged 7 and 9, arrived at an army camp carrying a 7-month-old sister and seeking help for the trapped girl. They reported their parents had been killed and then led soldiers to the home, Sultan said.
"They're the real heroes," he said. "They said their house is destroyed, their parents are dead and nobody is alive in their locality."
He said there was still hope, however remote, of finding survivors. The Red Cross previously said people can survive under rubble for nearly a week.
But Pakistan's relief commissioner, Maj. Gen. Farooq Ahmed Khan, voiced fears about the chill downpours that were making conditions even more miserable for quake survivors.
"There are bound to be casualties because of bad weather. How much, I don't know," Khan said at a news conference.
He said the confirmed casualty toll from the earthquake had risen to 39,422 dead and 65,038 injured. The number was expected to rise as relief teams discover more bodies in the rubble.
Khan said that 29,000 tents and 118,000 blankets had been distributed in the quake zone, but that 100,000 tents were needed. The army said medical supplies such as syringes, painkillers and antibiotics were also needed, but asked donors to stop sending fresh water because most affected areas had enough.
U.S. State Department official Geoffrey Krassy said many in the quake zone remained cut off from aid.
"About 20 percent of the populated areas have yet to be reached," said Krassy, who normally runs a drug-smuggling surveillance unit that monitors the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The unit has been redeployed to help quake victims, Krassy told reporters in the capital, Islamabad.
The military said roads to the valleys of Jehlum, Neelum and Kaghan in Kashmir remained closed by landslides, and it could take several weeks to clear them. In some areas, Pakistani soldiers evacuated injured villagers by carrying them on their backs.
The military said a transport helicopter crashed in bad weather as it returned home overnight after dropping off relief workers in the town of Bagh. All six soldiers aboard were killed, said Sultan, the army spokesman. Bad weather or a technical malfunction were the suspected cause of the crash, he added.
Bagh is one of the areas hardest hit by the magnitude-7.6 quake that struck Oct. 8. Relief workers have not been able to provide enough temporary shelters for town residents, let alone for the refugees who have streamed in from the mountains seeking aid.
The problems of aiding quake victims have been exacerbated because many whose houses did survive have refused to go back inside, fearing aftershocks could bring down the weakened structures.
"My house is full of cracks, and I won't go inside," said Bagh resident Mumtaz Rathore, huddled under a plastic sheet with his wife and four children. "Look at me, I have to live out here with my children."
In the driving rain, soldiers scrambled to cover supplies that had been dropped off by helicopters in previous days.
"The medicines are the most important thing for us," said Maj. Ali Agha, directing the effort to save the supplies in Bagh.
The U.S. military said it had suspended its helicopter flights.
"Nobody's going out today," said Col. Mark McKearn, who is charge of American relief flight operations.
Likewise, the Chaklala Air Base in Rawalpindi was quiet Sunday, in contrast to the brisk activity a day earlier when helicopters loaded up with supplies and sped off for the earthquake zone.
Khan, the relief commissioner, said a few helicopters had resumed aid flights to devastated areas in the North West Frontier Province, but conditions remained too dangerous over Kashmir.
The weather only added to the suffering in devastated regions.
A doctor in Bagh, Sajid Hussain, waded Sunday through ankle-deep water wearing a pair of plastic sandals, green surgical scrubs rolled up to his knees. He was heading toward a truck doubling as his operating theater.
Pounding rain overnight flooded the field of the boys college where he had set up, and a layer of water covered the floor of the tent where several patients lay waiting for surgery.
"It has been a tragedy and now this rain has made everything so much more horrible for people," Hussain said.
But there were new signs that the tragedy is helping to bridge the divide between the two sides of Kashmir, a territory that India and Pakistan have fought two out of their three wars over since winning independence from Britain in 1947.
India's foreign ministry said it had received a request from Pakistan on Oct. 13 to fly helicopters in the peacetime no-fly zone.
Pakistan would provide advance information of any helicopter flights to the dozens of devastated villages close to the cease-fire line to prevent misunderstanding, said an Indian official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
A 13-member team of doctors from the United States planned to fly to the affected area from Lahore on Sunday, but it was unclear whether they would be delayed by the weather, state news agency APP reported. The team, including Pakistani doctors practicing in the United States, was bringing tents, medicine and hospital equipment.
Temperatures dipped to 44 in Balakot, one of the worst-hit towns just outside of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in the country's northwest. High winds drove the rain, making the town a soaked nightmare for victims, while snow fell in nearby mountains.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz made it clear that shelter was the priority.
"We need tents, tents, tents and prefab housing," he told reporters.
WOW!
VERY good news!
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