Pakistan earthquake

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Kashmir quake leaves millions without
homes as hope for survivors dwindles
Islamabad, 15 October 2005: Officials in earthquake-hit Pakistan say search and rescue operations for any survivors have ended, and that the effort now is to provide relief for millions of people who are hungry and left out in the open.

United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland told a news conference in Islamabad, the cruel reality is that very few people can survive after a week. So, he said, aid agencies are now focusing on providing food and shelter to the millions who need it. He appealed for more helicopters to get relief supplies into remote regions.

Mr. Egeland said it will take five to ten years and billions of dollars for the area devastated by the 8 October quake to return to normal. Weather experts say a thunderstorm is expected in Pakistan in the next 24 hours and that it may hamper relief efforts. The official death toll so far stands at more than 25,000 in Pakistan and 1400 in Indian Kashmir.

India has decided to pay $2,300 each to the owners of some 40,000 homes destroyed by the quake in Indian Kashmir. Because the homes cannot be rebuilt before the oncoming winter, government engineers will build 20 community centers - each with a capacity to host 3,000 people. (Report by VOA news)

Massive UN emergency aid operation
as Kashmir death toll reaches 30,000
Islamabad, 12 October 2005: The United Nations has launched a $272 million appeal to fund a massive emergency aid operation in earthquake devastated Pakistan. The appeal covers the work of 15 UN agencies, the International Organization for Migration and three private aid agencies. The appeal is for immediate life-saving and early recovery activities for a period of six months. The United Nations says long-term recovery will cost billions of dollars and will have to wait until the emergency needs are addressed.

The United Nations is coordinating humanitarian operations with the Pakistani government. It says the earthquake killed more than 30,000 people. Some four million people have been affected. One million are in acute need of assistance and two million are homeless. It says more than 80 percent of structures and buildings in parts of northern Pakistan have been destroyed and strong aftershocks are threatening buildings already damaged by the initial earthquake.

The United Nations cites food, health, shelter, water and sanitation as the most critical needs.

The World Health Organization reports about one thousand hospitals have been destroyed and many medical workers killed. WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said the agency was sending in experts on epidemiology, public health, water and sanitation. "For example, 17 national surgical teams, 80 people have been sent to the most affected districts. These teams consist of surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, anesthetics and operating theater technicians," Ms.Chaib said. (Report by Lisa Schlein, VOA)

Kashmir capital city largely destroyed
as earthquake death toll nears 25,000
Islamabad, 10 October 2005: Donor nations are rushing doctors, helicopters, food and tents to quake-devastated Pakistan. In Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, shopkeepers clashed with looters, while hungry families huddled under makeshift tents waiting for relief. Earlier the country's interior minister said that the city was 70 per cent destroyed. Aid agencies say more than 120,000 people are in urgent need of shelter and up to four million could be left homeless by the 7.6 magnitude earthquake which caused destruction throughout Pakistan's northern mountains.

Frantic rescue efforts continue as the number of dead from South Asia's massive earthquake nears 25,000, most of them in Pakistan. The death toll is expected to rise as rescue workers reach isolated areas near the quake's epicenter in the Pakistan-controlled area in Kashmir. Most of the casualties from Saturday's earthquake are in the city of Muzaffarabad.

Some of the worst-hit areas are still cut off and the relief authorities have no communications. There have been villages which have been wiped out. Authorities there say hundreds of children were killed when their schools collapsed. Hundreds more are still trapped beneath the rubble as rescue workers frantically try to dig them out.

Hundreds of deaths also are being reported in other parts of Pakistan and India. Rescue workers say key roads remain blocked by debris and mudslides. Soldiers are working around the clock trying to restore the main road linking Kashmir to the rest of Pakistan, to allow urgently needed aid to pass through. Military planes are dropping supplies to some cut off areas and the government is setting up satellite telephones at 200 locations so that people in devastated areas could contact their families elsewhere in the country.

In Islamabad, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharaf asked the international community for assistance. "We have tremendous manpower. What we do need is financial support so we can use it in any way we feel is required," said Mr. Musharaf. "Secondly, medicines and thirdly, tents and blankets." The president also says the country desperately needs helicopters to help ferry aid to victims in quake affected areas. They have only 29 available now. (Report by Bejamin Sand, VAO)

Coastal cities met in China
to discuss ocean protection
Beijing, 9 October 2005: The 2005 International Forum of Seaside Cities opened Saturday, 8 October, in Xiamen, a coastal scenic city in eastern China. With ocean protection and land pollutant control as its theme, the forum has attracted more than 300 representatives from international organizations like the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), more than 20 coastal cities from countries including Australia, Spain, Japan, the Philippines and Thailand, as well as 14 coastal Chinese cities.

The participants are discussing achievements and experience in ocean protection during the two-day forum. Various renowned scholars will introduce the latest technological developments in ocean protection, and a Xiamen Declaration will be jointly signed by coastal city representatives at the closure, organisers said.

Wang Zhijia, special envoy of UNEP’s Executive Director Klaus Toepfer, said at the opening ceremony that the local governments should enhance exchanges and cooperation to learn from others' experience in ocean protection. (Report by China View)

Massive earthquake hits cities
in Pakistan and Afghanistan
Islamabad, 8 October 2005: A powerful earthquake rocked South Asia Saturday (8 October 2005), with hundreds of people feared dead or injured from Afghanistan to India. Officials say the earthquake, centered in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, may have caused massive casualties across the region, with Pakistan the hardest hit. Buildings collapsed in Islamabad and Jalalabad, while the tremors were also felt in New Delhi and Kabul.

Chaos was reported in Islamabad as hundreds of people joined a desperate search for survivors. A 10-story building collapsed as the 7.6 magnitude earthquake jolted the region just before nine o'clock Saturday morning. Neighborhood residents say hundreds of people may have been trapped in the rubble or killed outright. Mohammad Rafiq says he saw desperate families digging through the debris looking for survivors. "The problem is this, the upper six floors are totally vanished," he said. "I don't think any people who were in the upper stories, they can survive."

But this was only one small spot. The quake rocked buildings from New Delhi to Kabul, sending people screaming in fear into the streets. As the day wore on, rescue teams struggled to reach remote areas close to the quake's epicenter, near the border between the Indian and Pakistani portions of Kashmir.

Causality figures crept up throughout the day. Two children were reported dead in the Afghan city of Jalalabad. Fifteen Indian soldiers in Kashmir died in a landslide. An eight-year-old boy in Indian Kashmir was crushed to death when the walls of his house collapsed. The total death toll in India passed 150 by mid-afternoon, and kept climbing.

But early reports suggest Pakistan suffered the most. Officials say the quake triggered massive landslides in northern Pakistan, in places burying whole villages. Pakistan's Interior Minister, Aftab Sherpao, told a local news program that entire villages been wiped out. He said the number of casualties could be "massive." A spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf said Saturday afternoon the death toll in Pakistan could run into the thousands. (Report by Benjamin Sand, VOA)