ISLAMABAD, 17 October 2005 — The death toll from Pakistan’s killer quake jumped to 53,000 yesterday as relief work for survivors was badly hampered by bad weather and a lack of helicopters. There was something to cheer, however: A young girl was pulled out of the rubble eight days after the quake flattened her house.
At least 40,000 people in Pakistani-administered Kashmir died in the Oct. 8 earthquake, said a spokesman for Sikandar Hayat Khan, the prime minister of the region. That would push the total death toll in the disaster to more than 53,000, including more than 13,000 in the country’s North West Frontier Province. About 1,350 people died in the part of divided Kashmir that India controls.
Khan earlier had told Pakistan’s Geo television the toll could eventually be higher still. “Some people fear that the death toll could be 100,000 and they may be right,” he said.
Confirmation of a final death toll will be difficult because many bodies are buried beneath the rubble.
Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said soldiers had been alerted to the girl’s survival near Balakot by two brothers carrying their infant brother. The boys told soldiers their sister was trapped alive under the rubble of Snaghar, around 7 km from Balakot, and begged for help to pull her out, he said. “Our soldiers pulled out the girl today,” Sultan said, without giving her age or how the brothers found her.
He said the parents of the children had died in the earthquake, and the eldest boy, aged nine, had looked after his two younger brothers.
Yesterday, torrential downpours halted airborne relief efforts in the region, where the Pakistani military said one of its relief helicopters had crashed in bad weather, killing all six military personnel aboard. Maj. Fayaz Ali said the only choppers to fly in Muzaffarabad were from the German military. “It’s a logistical nightmare,” said Alain Pasche, coordinator of UN relief operations in Muzaffarabad. “Especially so in the little villages and for the people who are coming into Muzaffarabad. The situation is catastrophic here,” he said.
— Additional input from agencies
