Devastation keeps spreading amidst obstacles packed rescue operation
Hopeless souls await helpless rescuers - Death toll reaches 20,000 - Many more causalities expected -Thousands
still buried under mud, rubbles - Rescuers trying to access the inaccessible victims - High hopes in  Chinese
R & R experts - President seeks international aid of choppers, blankets, medicines, tents
By Makhdoom Babar/Correspondents/Agencies

ISLAMABAD—The devastation caused by the Saturday's Earthquake continues to spread as hopeless souls, trapped under mud or debris still await their helpless rescuers in different parts of Kashmir and NWFP.
While the entire focus of the international media and relief workers remained on Islamabad's collapsed building that was actually just the tip of the iceberg, thousands are still trapped and buried under mud and rubble. Government has launched largest ever Rescue and Relief operation in countries history yet the rescuers are facing a pack full of obstacles to carry out the operation with all the comprehension. In the remote areas of Azad Kashmir and NWFP, the rescuers are facing enormous problems to reach to the trapped victims. The road link between Kashmir and Islamabad has already been disconnected while the road network in Azad Kashmir and affected areas of NWFP has already been eliminated. The only way to reach the trapped and stranded victims is to use the chopper. However, even the chopper cant land and many areas while the government is already in acute shortage of transport choppers.
While the officials confirm the death toll to the figure of 19000 to 20,000, the unofficial and unconfirmed reports say the toll is nearly 30,000 in the Kashmir region alone while an even number is reported to be still trapped, dead or alive. The reports suggest that thousands of school children are still reported to be trapped under the mud or the debris in their respective School compounds in Kashmir and NWFP areas. It is reported that only in one school some 250 girls are still buried under the mud.
While thousands are reported to be still trapped or buried under mud or rubble, the miseries of those who have been recovered are not less than those still trapped. The injured are in terrible condition in the Kashmir region and in NWFP areas as the rescuers are facing immense difficulties in shifting such a big number of injured victims to hospitals in Murree and Rawalpindi. According to the reports, there is a lack of medicines also as even at Abbottabad people were heard crying miserably because of unavailability of anesthesia. Other pain-killing and life-saving medicines are also not enough to meet the requirements at different spots in the deserted areas. Those who have lost their homes are lying under open sky as there are no tents available to provide shelter to every homeless.
According to reports at least 300 children still remained entrapped in a collapsed school building in Balakot, while 40 bodies of the children have thus far been recovered, which were in very bad condition.
Efforts to rescue the remaining children on self-help basis are underway, while most of the surviving people of the affected areas here sustained injuries minor or severe, but no facility exists for providing them medical aid.
Meanwhile, the tremors and land sliding in the area continued intermittently, which blocked all roads leading here and the people kept waiting for the government help.
The situation was further aggravated, when it started raining heavily here last night adding to the miseries of the people who have made a general appeal to all and sundry for help and succor urgently.
Though the government is making all out efforts with all available resources, yet the electronic media is trying to twist the wind against the government by provoking people about inefficiency of the government, just to scandalize the issue to gain maximum audience. The military rescuers as well as the international rescue workers are jointly engaged in the relief operation and are forming different strategies every now and then to make the operations more and more effective. However a lot of hopes are being pinned in the Chinese Relief and Rescue experts as it is said that they have ample experience of carrying out R&R operations in such remote areas. Meanwhile the French, Japanese and British relief and rescue workers have also arrived in Capital and are getting engaged in the rescue operations.
However, the dilemma of the Government remains the unavailability of transporter helicopters, because ample aid goods from all over the world have already reached Pakistan but it cannot be transported further to the affected areas because of the aforesaid problem. President General Pervez Musharraf has already appealed to the World Governments to help Pakistan by providing transport helicopters, blankets, medicine, food and tents.
Rescuers searched frantically in the rubble of flattened towns and villages on Sunday for survivors of a devastating earthquake that killed more than 20,000 in northern Pakistan and India.
In worst hit Pakistan, more than 24 hours after Saturday morning’s quake, hundreds of children were trapped in collapsed schools and 150 people, including foreigners, were buried in two collapsed apartment blocks in the capital, Islamabad.
Rescue teams and ordinary citizens labored with cranes and earth-moving equipment or used their bare hands in desperate searches for survivors, some complaining bitterly about the lack of assistance from badly stretched central authorities.
President Pervez Musharraf said there were difficulties reaching remote areas. He thanked foreign countries for expressions of sympathy, but said what Pakistan needed most were blankets and tents, transport helicopters and medicines. Pledges came from around the world within hours of the disaster and the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the effort was “rushing against the clock”.
The 7.6 magnitude quake, the biggest in Pakistan in memory, was centered in forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir, near the Indian border, and violently jolted large parts of northern Pakistan, as well as parts of neighboring Afghanistan and India. About 19,400 people were killed and more than 42,000 hurt in Pakistan, said Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, with the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir and its capital Muzaffarabad worst hit.
But the communications minister for Pakistani Kashmir, Tariq Farooq, said the toll there alone could reach 30,000 as the focus so far had been only on the main towns, not mountain villages. In Muzaffarabad, most houses, government buildings and shops had collapsed and frightened residents spent a chilly night camped in fields, parks, graveyards and cars.
Another 558 people died in the Indian side of Kashmir, where many mud and stone houses were buried by landslides. Pakistani military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan called the devastation the worst in Pakistan’s history. “There are many villages that have been wiped off the face of this earth,” he said.
Amongst countless tragic sights, perhaps most pitiful was that of hundreds of parents using picks, shovels and their bare hands in a desperate attempt to reach 850 children trapped in the rubble of two schools in Northwest Frontier Province. The frightened voices of trapped children and the anguished wails of parents accompanied the frantic work in the Balakot valley in the mountains of the province bordering Afghanistan.
“Save me, call my mother, call my father,” came the faint voice of a boy, again and again, from the rubble of a government school in which residents said about 200 children were trapped.
“Bring out my child, bring out my child,” his mother wailed, beating her chest as other parents and relatives pulled out the bodies of four children, bringing Sunday morning’s toll to eight. Pope Benedict urged a quick and generous global response.
The United States said it would provide $100,000 in emergency aid and was offering military helicopters. Britain, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates were among those sending immediate help. Turkey, which has suffered major earthquakes, said it had sent two military planes carrying aid, doctors and rescue workers and in a further sign of easing tensions, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Musharraf to offer assistance.
China said it was donating $6.2 million in cash and materials. Rescue efforts have been hampered by frequent aftershocks causing panic among survivors, many of whom face a bleak immediate future with little or no food or shelter.
“I’ve been involved in helping refugees for the last 17 years, but I am in shock because I have never seen such devastation,” said German aid agency doctor Chris Schmoter in Balakot, where almost every second woman or child bore an injury.
Reporters counted 105 bodies during an eight-km (five-mile) trek into the town. Some were laid by the road by relatives hoping for help with their burial. Others were carried on charpoys, traditional rope beds. A boy carried a younger sister of perhaps four or five, her skin stripped off her face and the side of her body by a rock that flattened their house. He did not know what to do.
“There are no bandages or anything at all,” he said. “There are no doctors, no nothing — where should we go?” Distraught relatives and friends of those missing in the Margala Towers apartments in Islamabad, home to expatriates and middle-class Pakistanis, waited as rescuers scoured the debris.
Musharraf said 35 bodies had been recovered from the apartments and some 80 people had been rescued, but about 150 people were still in the ruins. The dead included two Japanese and an Egyptian, but rescuers located a buried woman on Sunday, raising hopes for others. “It’s terrible. I’m waiting for a miracle. My brother and his whole family are in there,” said Brigadier Abdul Jahsor.
Assuring the nation of all-out rescue and relief efforts, President General Pervez Musharraf asked the international community to assist Pakistan with supplies of medicine, tents, cargo helicopters and financial assistance in overcoming the country's worst earthquake-wrought disaster.
"We do seek international assistance, we have enough manpower but we need financial support so that we may utilize in a required way to cope with the tragedy. Then there is a need for large supplies of medicines, tents and cargo helicopters to reach out to the people in far-flung and cut-off areas, the bigger these copters the better," he said prior to his departure for an extensive visit to the quake-affected areas.
He thanked leaders of foreign countries who called him in the aftermath of the Saturday's quake tragedy and offered their condolences and assistance.
The President said that it was too early to give an exact figure about the loss of lives, but they could be in the range of 15 to 18 thousand dead as per latest reports.
President Musharraf said there have been reports of extensive damage in Muzaffarabad, 50 per cent of the hilly city facing devastation as a number of schools and hospitals have collapsed and children are trapped inside.
In Mansehra and Balakot areas, there have been massive losses, he said.
About the situation in the capital, Islamabad, he said about 80 people have been evacuated from the debris of the flattened Margalla Tower in the F-10 sector and 35 people have lost their lives.
In addition, another 150 persons are said to be trapped under the rubble.
"I will visit the entire area and have a first-hand information about the extent of damage and the state of rescue activities," the President said.
He appealed to the Pakistanis abroad to assist the Government through donations to the Relief Fund.
"Allah has given you a lot and today your nation requires your support — I appeal to you to donate generously to the President's Relief Fund for Earthquake Victims".
"I hope you realize this hour of crisis to your nation and come forward with a large heart in trying to alleviate the sufferings of the people and share the burden of the government".
He assured that all contributions made to the Fund would be accounted for and transparency observed in regard with their expenditure.
The President expressed his heartfelt condolences over the loss of lives and assured the affected that all available sources are being used for their early recovery, relief and rehabilitation.
"The Pakistani nation deserves all appreciation and encouragement for their immediate voluntary response to the calamity as they extended assistance to the government agencies in redressing the crisis," he stated.
"This is the same spirit, we have to persist with in tackling the situation".
In the last 24 hours, all national resources including civil and military agencies have been mobilized to overcome the damage wrought by earthquake.
In Islamabad, military and civil organizations are working to save maximum lives. In Muzaffarabad and Mansehra, Pakistan army has been directed to put all resources into use to support public in this hour of difficulty.
"All aviation helicopters have been employed and C-130 of PAF are also ready — but we should see that both routes to Muzaffarabad through Murree and Abbottabad — have been blocked due to damage caused to roads.
"In this situation, only helicopters can be helpful in rescue and relief operations — and similarly in Mansehra and adjoining areas helicopters are delivering the services as C-130 cannot land there due to lack of landing strip.
He appealed that there was a need to refrain from a blame game as army and all public organizations are contributing to rescue and relief activities.
"Let's together support and encourage each other in carrying out the challenging task successfully".
"I know that whenever our nation is confronted with a danger or a tragedy of such scale, we emerge as a united force and I am fully confident that the people will extend their fullest support in both finances and kind to mitigate the sufferings of the affected people".