South Asia quake kills more than 30,000; Pakistani president appeals for help

Photo: An aerial view taken on Sunday shows the earthquake worst hit town of Balakot, in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

BALAKOT, Pakistan- Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake killed more than 20,000. Pakistani officials said the death toll could go higher, and a provincial official in Kashmir said more than 30,000 died in that province alone. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf called Saturday's magnitude-7.7 earthquake the country's worst on record and appealed for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote areas cut off by landslides. Rival India, which reported more than 600 dead, offered assistance. The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said Washington had not instructed it to provide help, while a NATO spokesman said the mission was not allowed to operate outside Afghanistan. The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three countries, with the damage spanning at least 400 kilometres from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-storey building collapsed. "We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history," chief army spokesman Maj.-Gen. Shaukat Sultan said. In mountainous Kashmir, the quake flattened dozens of villages and towns, crushing schools and mud-brick houses. The dead included 250 girls at a school razed to the ground and more than 200 Pakistani soldiers on duty in the Himalayas. "I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press. Officials said Balakot was one of the hardest-hit areas. Near the ruins of one collapsed school, at least a dozen bodies were strewn on the streets of the devastated village of about 30,000. At least 250 pupils were feared trapped inside the rubble of the four-storey school. Dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers but many without tools, pulled at the debris and carried away bodies. Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas Sunday. However, landslides and rain hindered rescue efforts, blocking roads to some remote areas. There was no sign of government help in Balakot, in the North West Frontier Province about 100 kilometres north of Islamabad. The quake levelled the village's main bazaar, crushing shoppers and strewing gas cylinders, bricks, tomatoes and onions on the streets. Injured people covered by shawls lay in the street, waiting for medical care. Residents carried bodies on wooden planks. The corpses of four children, aged between four and six, lay under a sheet of corrugated iron. Relatives said they were trying to find sheets to wrap the bodies. Elsewhere in Balakot, shop owner Mohammed Iqbal said two primary schools, one for boys and one for girls, also collapsed. More than 500 students were feared dead.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf appealed to the international community for medicine, tents, cargo helicopters and financial assistance. "We do seek international assistance. We have enough manpower but we need financial support . . . to cope with the tragedy," Musharraf said in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad, before touring devastated areas. Musharraf said he knew of as many as 20,000 people killed, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told CNN about 43,000 people were injured. He told the British Broadcasting Corp. the only way to reach many far-flung areas was by helicopter because roads were buried by landslides. "Our helicopter resources are limited," he told the BBC. "We need massive cargo helicopter support." Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the United States was sending between six and eight transport helicopters Monday. The United States, the UN, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Japan and Germany all offered assistance. An eight-member UN team of top disaster co-ordination officials arrived in Islamabad on Sunday to plan the global body's response. The Canadian government has promised at least $300,000 for immediate aid to regions devastated by the earthquake. In Pakistan's northwestern district of Mansehra, police chief Ataullah Khan Wazir said Saturday that authorities there pulled 250 bodies from the rubble of a girls' school in the village of Ghari Habibibullah. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools. At least 215 Pakistani soldiers died in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, Sultan said. On the India side of the border, at least 54 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman. The only serious damage reported in Islamabad was the collapse of a 10-story apartment building, where at least 24 people were killed and dozens were injured. Doctors said the dead included an Egyptian diplomat, and the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said two Japanese were killed. Canadian consular officials said Saturday evening that, so far, there are no Canadian casualties among the 286 in Pakistan registered with the Foreign Affairs Department. On Sunday, Pakistani rescue teams pulled two survivors from the rubble. The boy and woman, who were listed in stable condition, told doctors others were trapped alive and calling for help beneath the debris. The death toll in India crossed 600 Sunday after rescue workers recovered 90 more bodies in the frontier Tangdar region, 105 kilometres north of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. Hundreds of angry villagers blocked roads in the region Sunday, protesting the slow pace of rescue efforts. On the main road between Baramulla and the border town of Uri, locals demanded that journalists and soldiers with aid go to their mountainside villages. Afghanistan reported four killed. India, a longtime rival of Pakistan, offered help and condolences in a gesture of co-operation. The nuclear rivals have been pursuing peace after fighting three wars since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir. By Sadakt Jan