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EARTHQUAKE on 08/10/2005 at 03:50 (UTC) EARTHQUAKE on 08/10/2005 at 04:26 (UTC) 2005/10/08 12:25 M 5.9 PAKISTAN Z= 20km 34.79N 73.14E EARTHQUAKE on 08/10/2005 at 10:46 (UTC) |
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Strong 7.6-Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Southern Asia
Hundreds Killed in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Oct. 8) - A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border Saturday reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and flattened an apartment building, killing hundreds of people in both nations. Pakistan's army called the devastation "a national tragedy." In the capitals of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, buildings shook and walls swayed for about a minute, and panicked people ran from their homes and offices. Tremors continued for hours afterward. Communications throughout the region were cut. Pakistan's Geo television quoted chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan as saying 1,000 people were feared dead. Army officials who flew over quake-hit areas reported seeing hundreds of flattened homes in villages north of the capital, Islamabad. "It is a national tragedy," Sultan said. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times." The U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site that the quake hit at 8:50 a.m. local time and had a magnitude of 7.6. It was centered about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Islamabad in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir. Damage was extensive in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan territory divided between India and Pakistan. Officials in the Indian-controlled portion reported at least 190 people killed, including 20 soldiers who perished in a landslide. At least 800 people were injured and about 2,700 homes were destroyed or damaged across Jammu-Kashmir, said senior state official B.B. Vyas. Army soldiers and local volunteers were rescuing people from under the debris of collapsed houses. Telephone lines were down. Bridges had developed cracks, but traffic was passing over them. The USGS reported at least five aftershocks in Pakistan, with the strongest measuring magnitude 6.3 and located about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Islamabad. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ordered the military to extend "all-out help" to quake-hit areas and appealed to the nation to stay calm. Helicopters took troops to damaged areas, but landslides were hindering rescue efforts. At least 500 people died and 1,700 were injured in four quake-hit districts in northwestern Pakistan, said provincial police chief Rifat Pasha. He said the toll could rise because rescue teams were still working in areas that were hit hard by the temblor. In eastern Afghanistan, an 11-year-old girl was crushed to death when a wall in her home collapsed, said police official Gafar Khan. The quake brought down a 10-story apartment building in Islamabad and dozens of people were feared trapped in the rubble. Rescuers pulled out at least 20 injured people. Some residents were Westerners, a building employee said. A man named Rehmatullah who lived nearby said he saw dust from the buckled building from his bathroom window. "I rushed down, and for some time you could not see anything because of the dust. Then we began to look for people in the rubble," he said. "We pulled out one man by cutting off his legs." "It was like hell," said Nauman Ali, who lived in a nearby top-floor apartment. "It was terrible. I was tossed up in my bed and the ceiling fan struck against the roof." Aided by two large cranes, hundreds of police and soldiers helped remove chunks of concrete, one of which was splattered with blood. One rescue worker said he initially heard faint cries from people trapped in the rubble. In Abbotabad, north of Islamabad, dozens of injured quake victims and other patients, some hooked up to intravenous drips, lay on the lawn of the city hospital after officials said aftershocks made it unsafe to stay inside. Hospital staff with loudspeakers appealed to the public for food and other relief supplies. One of the injured was an 8-year-old boy, Qadeer, whose father, a farmer named Jehangir, said the only buildings left standing in their village were a mosque and a school. Qadeer lay unconscious, his right leg heavily bandaged. Sultan said the worst-hit areas were in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, including Muzaffarabad, the regional capital, and the towns of Bagh and Rawalakot. The districts of Batagram, Balakot, Mansehra, Abbottabad and Patan in northwestern Pakistan also suffered serious damage, he said. Dozens of homes, schools, mosques and government offices were damaged, and hundreds of injured people were taken to hospitals. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said the quake was felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but he had no reports of damage at bases around the country. "It was so strong that I saw buildings swaying. It was terrifying," said Hari Singh, a guard in an apartment complex in a suburb of India's capital, New Delhi. Hundreds of residents raced down from their apartments after their furniture started shaking. The quake also jolted parts of Bangladesh, but no casualties or damage were reported there. 10-08-05 09:22 EDT
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
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Strong 7.6-Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Southern Asia
More Than 3,000 Killed in Pakistan, India
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Oct. 8) - A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border Saturday reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and flattened an apartment building. More than 3,000 people were killed in both nations, and a Pakistan army spokesman called the devastation "a national tragedy." The toll included 250 girls who died when their school in northwestern Pakistan collapsed. Another 500 students were injured, said Ataullah Khan Wazir, police chief in the northwestern district of Mansehra. In the capitals of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, buildings shook and walls swayed for about a minute, and panicked people ran from their homes and offices. Tremors continued for hours afterward. Communications throughout the region were cut. About 1,000 people were killed in Pakistani Kashmir, said Sardar Mohammed Anwar, the top government official in the area. The army said 200 soldiers there were killed. "This is my conservative guess, and the death toll could be much higher," Anwar told Pakistan's Aaj television station. He said most homes in Muzaffarabad, the area's capital, were damaged, and schools and hospitals had collapsed. At least 1,600 people died in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, said the province's top elected official, Akram Durani. The U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site the quake hit at 8:50 a.m. local time and had a magnitude of 7.6. It was centered about 60 miles northeast of Islamabad in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir. "The damage and casualties could be massive and it is a national tragedy," chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times." Damage was extensive in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan territory divided between India and Pakistan. Officials in the Indian-controlled portion reported at least 250 people killed, including 20 soldiers who perished in a landslide. At least 850 people were injured and about 2,700 homes were destroyed or damaged across Jammu-Kashmir, said senior state official B.B. Vyas. Army soldiers and local volunteers were rescuing people from under the debris of collapsed houses. Telephone lines were down. Bridges had developed cracks, but traffic was passing over them. The USGS reported at least five aftershocks in Pakistan, with the strongest measuring magnitude 6.3 and located about 70 miles north of Islamabad. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ordered the military to extend "all-out help" to quake-hit areas and appealed to the nation to stay calm. Helicopters took troops to damaged areas, but landslides were hindering rescue efforts. Musharraf, walking through the rubble in Islamabad, said the air force was deploying C-130 transport planes and 10 helicopters to devastated areas. In a show of solidarity, India offered assistance and condolences to its longtime rival. The neighbors, which are engaged in a peace process, have fought three wars, including two over Kashmir, since independence from Britain in 1947. "While parts of India have also suffered from this unexpected natural disaster, we are prepared to extend any assistance with rescue and relief which you may deem appropriate," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a message to Musharraf. President Bush offered condolences and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was ready to help. "At this difficult time, the United States stands with its friends in Pakistan and India, just as they stood with us and offered assistance after Hurricane Katrina," Rice said in a statement. In eastern Afghanistan, an 11-year-old girl was crushed to death when a wall in her home collapsed, said police official Gafar Khan. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said the quake was felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but he had no reports of damage at bases around the country. Maj. Richard McNorton, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said there were no reports of quake-related injuries among the more than 18,000 American forces in Afghanistan. The quake brought down a 10-story apartment building in Islamabad and dozens of people were feared trapped in the rubble. Rescuers pulled out at least 20 injured people. Some residents were Westerners, a building employee said. A man named Rehmatullah who lived nearby said he saw dust from the buckled building from his bathroom window. "I rushed down, and for some time you could not see anything because of the dust. Then we began to look for people in the rubble," he said. "We pulled out one man by cutting off his legs." "It was like hell," said Nauman Ali, who lived in a nearby top-floor apartment. "It was terrible. I was tossed up in my bed and the ceiling fan struck against the roof." Aided by two large cranes, hundreds of police and soldiers helped remove chunks of concrete, one of which was splattered with blood. One rescue worker said he heard faint cries from people trapped in the rubble. In Abbotabad, north of Islamabad, dozens of quake victims and other patients, some hooked up to intravenous drips, lay on the lawn of the city hospital after officials said aftershocks made it unsafe to stay inside. Hospital staff used loudspeakers to ask the public for food and other relief supplies. One of the injured was 8-year-old Qadeer, whose father, a farmer named Jehangir, said the only buildings left standing in their village were a mosque and a school. Qadeer lay unconscious, his right leg heavily bandaged. Sultan said the worst-hit areas were in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, including Muzaffarabad, the regional capital, and the towns of Bagh and Rawalakot. The districts of Batagram, Balakot, Mansehra, Abbottabad and Patan in northwestern Pakistan also suffered serious damage, he said. Dozens of homes, schools, mosques and government offices were damaged, and hundreds of injured people were taken to hospitals. In India's portion of Kashmir, two main highways were closed because of landslides triggered by the quake, and relief material was being flown to some areas, said Vijay Bakaya, Jammu-Kashmir state's chief secretary. At least 400 tents were flown by helicopter to Uri and Tangdar to provide temporary shelter in the freezing Himalayan foothills, officials said. Teams of doctors and Red Cross volunteers were traveling by road and on foot to remote mountainous areas, Bakaya said. All hospitals in the state have been put on alert and medical staff recalled, he said. Power has been restored to hospitals, but telephone, water and electricity supplies were still disrupted across much of the state. "Our first priority is to help affected families, deliver relief and assess the loss so that further help can be provided," Bakaya said. In Kunzru village, near Srinagar, almost the entire village of 200 homes was flattened. "The floor started shaking, and everything turned upside down," villager Ghulam Mohi-udin Khan said from his hospital bed, where he was being treated for a fractured leg. His wife lay on an adjacent cot, her head in bandages from a head wound caused by falling masonry as their house collapsed. Many Kunzru residents sat in the open fields waiting for relief to reach them. The temblor also was felt near India's capital. "It was so strong that I saw buildings swaying. It was terrifying," said Hari Singh, a guard in an apartment complex in a suburb of New Delhi. Hundreds of residents raced down from their apartments after their furniture started shaking. The quake also jolted parts of Bangladesh, but no casualties or damages were reported. Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report. AP-ES-10-08-05 1455EDT
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
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Up to 18,000 feared dead
in quake: Pakistan
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Asian Quake Death Toll at Least 20,000Sunday, October 9, 2005 (10-09) 06:03 PDT BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) -- 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. Pakistani officials said the death toll ranged between nearly 20,000 and 30,000. Pakistan called Saturday's magnitude-7.6 earthquake the country's worst on record, and the president appealed for urgent help. Rival India, which reported more than 465 dead, offered assistance. "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. 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. 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 nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed. "We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history," chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said. 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-story school. Dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers but many without tools, pulled at the debris and carried away bodies. Faizan Farooq, a 19-year-old business administration student, said he had heard children under the rubble crying for help immediately after Saturday's disaster. "Now there's no sign of life," he said Sunday. "We can't do this without the army's help. Nobody has come here to help us." 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 60 miles north of Islamabad. The quake leveled 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 4 and 6, lay under a sheet of corrugated iron. Relatives said they were trying to find sheets to wrap the bodies. "We don't have anything to bury them with," said a cousin, Saqib Swati. 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. Supplies were needed "to reach out to the people in far-flung and cut-off areas," he said in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad, before leaving on a tour of devastated areas. The United States, the United Nations, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Japan and Germany all offered assistance. 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. Mansehra was believed to be a hotbed of Islamic militant activity during the time the Taliban religious militia ruled neighboring Afghanistan. Al-Qaida operatives trained suicide squads at a camp there, Afghan and Pakistani officials told The Associated Press in 2002. 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. 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. "These people heard voices and cries during the whole night," said Adil Inayat, a doctor at PIMS hospital in Islamabad. The death toll in India rose Sunday to 465 after rescue workers and soldiers pulled out 90 more bodies in the frontier Tangdar region, 65 miles north of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state. Most of the deaths were in the border towns of Uri, Tangdar and Punch and Srinagar, where the quake collapsed houses and buildings. Afghanistan reported four killed. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of Islamabad in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir. That was followed by at least 22 aftershocks within 24 hours, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor. Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing more damage, and many people spent the night in the open. India, a longtime rival of Pakistan, offered help and condolences in a gesture of cooperation. The nuclear rivals have been pursuing peace after fighting three wars since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir. Afghanistan appeared to suffer the least damage. In its east, an 11-year-old girl was crushed to death when a wall in her home collapsed, police official Gafar Khan said. Three others also died. A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, said the quake was felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but there were no reports of damage at bases around the country. An eight-member U.N. team of top disaster coordination officials was due to arrive in Islamabad on Sunday to plan the global body's response. President Bush offered condolences, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was ready to help. |
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| Casualties could exceed 100,000: unofficial
reports: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Tuesday that 23,000 people had died in Saturday's earthquake and that the death toll would increase after rescuers reached far-off areas.Speaking at a press conference, he said 51,000 people had been injured and about 2.5 million had been rendered homeless. However, according to unofficial reports the death toll might exceed 100,000. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005%5C10%5C12%5Cstory_12-10-2005_pg7_1 Weather Slows Asia Quake Aid; 35,000 Dead Posted: Tuesday, Oct 11, 2005 - 02:51:20 pm PDT MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Heavy rain and hail grounded helicopters and stopped trucks loaded with relief supplies Tuesday, imposing more misery on hungry, shivering earthquake survivors as the United Nations warned of potentially lethal outbreaks of measles, cholera and diarrhea. http://www.columbiabasinherald.com/articles/2005/10/11/ap/headlines/d8d636t00.txt ----------------------------------------------------- ZT: Due to the compression of the Pacific during the forthcoming pole shift, India is forced under the Himalayan highlands, with a violent thrust of the Indo-Australian plate, which is strong enough to remain whole, yet the edges of which will separate from the surrounding plates so that it is free to move and slide under the Himalayas
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| Kashmir Quake Toll Nears 40,000 By David Fox Reuters Saturday 15 October 2005 Muzaffarabad, Pakistan - Pakistan raised the official death toll from the Kashmir earthquake to 38,000 on Saturday, a week after one of the most devastating quakes to hit South Asia in recorded history. "I think it is going to rise," President Pervez Musharraf told a news conference after his aides released the latest toll. Pakistani Kashmir and North West Frontier Province bore the brunt of the earthquake's power and the jump in the toll came after confirmation of more fatalities from remote mountain valleys and the town of Balakot. Relief flights in and out of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, were severely disrupted on Saturday by rain. A few helicopters managed to take off from a makeshift landing pad in a sports field. Musharraf was unsure whether the Pakistan Army rescue teams had reached all the affected areas and he expected the number of confirmed dead to increase once routes into the Jhelum and Neelum valleys were cleared of landslides. Another 1,300 people are confirmed dead in Indian Kashmir. Some 3,000 Muslim faithful gathered in Pakistan's largest mosque, Shah Faisal in Islamabad, for a prayer session at the time of the quake just before 9 a.m. (5 a.m. British time) on October 8. "Oh Allah give courage to those who survived this disaster to endure this hardship," the cleric prayed, his voice breaking with sobs as he called Pakistanis who died in the quake martyrs. It is Ramadan in Pakistan, a holy month of prayer which also dictates fasting from dawn to dusk. The 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck just outside Muzaffarabad, a city of 70,000 people 100 km (65 miles) northeast of Islamabad, at the foothills of the Himalayas, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. The rise in the death toll puts the earthquake on the same massive scale of destruction as the Quetta quake of 1935. Between 30,000 and 60,000 people are estimated to have died in the Quetta quake, which almost destroyed the city completely, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, killed 31,000 people. The overwhelming concern as relief operations moved from rescue to rehabilitation was the potentially deadly combination of bad weather and no real shelter. The United Nations estimates more than a million have been made homeless - as many as 2.5 million by local counts - and winter is approaching rapidly. Tent Cities In lieu of organised camps, tent cities sprung up in Muzaffarabad made up of plastic awnings, old signboards and a few real tents. Refugees burn wood from the rubble still wet from the rain, plastic bags and bottles or even donated clothing - whatever they can find to keep warm and cook. "It is very difficult. My children are crying all the time," said Nasreen Ikram, her daughter by her side chanting softly "Allah, Allah" (God). The smell of burning plastic hung in the air of Ikram's camp, housing some 2,000 people, along with the stench of dead bodies still entombed in rubble. With chances of finding anyone to rescue fading fast, some international rescue teams had begun to leave. Musharraf said rescue work would continue, although experts suggest it would be a miracle if anyone survived for eight days. Thirty people, including foreigners, remain unaccounted for in Islamabad's Margala Towers apartment block, the capital's only significant damage, and British rescuers were working there in the hope of finding more people alive. Thunder and lightning rolled through mountains around Muzaffarabad on Saturday and dark clouds hung low over the city. The 48-hour weather forecast for the region was for isolated thunderstorms followed by a cold snap that will bring night-time temperatures to as low as three degrees Centigrade (37 degrees Fahrenheit). Strong aftershocks have sent nervous residents of ruined mountain towns running into streets in the middle of the night. Meteorological officials said seismic activity was likely to continue for months, maybe years. Global Response About $350 million (198 million pounds) in international aid has been pledged and more than $38 million has been raised domestically. But United Nations chief emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland has called for a more urgent world aid response. He said there was still an acute shortage of helicopters and about three times as many were needed. "This is a very major earthquake but it's really aggravated a thousand times by the topography," he told Reuters. "An earthquake is bad anywhere, in the Himalayas it becomes much worse." The aid effort has picked up steam in recent days after a difficult start due to a shortage of helicopters needed to reach remote mountain towns and roads blocked by landslides. Where valleys are too narrow and steep-sided for helicopters, mule-trains are being sent to carry in the food, blankets and tents people need to survive. The tragedy has straddled the divide between Pakistani and Indian Kashmir that dates back to independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and over which Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars. Militants Are Heros in the Village that
Was Buried Alive Friday 14 October 2005 Just north of Muzaffarabad lies the village that was buried alive. In Saturday's earthquake, the mountainside that half of Danimay Sahib was built on gave way in an immense landslide. All that is left is a great pale gash in the hillside. They say 1,000 people died here. For the survivors, the only way out is a perilous journey across the swollen rapids of the river on a makeshift boat made from the inner tube of a truck tyre. The injured are steadied by volunteers, while another rows across with a single oar. The "boat" spins and threatens to capsize. The road to the village was cut by landslides. Even the journey to the river's edge is difficult, across the mud and rubble of the landslide. This is also the only way in for food, medicine, blankets and tents for the survivors. On the other side of the river lies the village of Chalabandi, also destroyed, and a road decorated with huge cracks, just drivable. It leads to the landing pad for helicopters that ferry the wounded to hospital. The men who operate the ferry service are young, with long Islamic beards. They are the militants of Lashkar-e Toiba, listed as a "terrorist" group in the West and officially banned by the Pakistani government under Western pressure. They have come here from the same madrassa outside Lahore that attracted attention in July, after it emerged that one of the 7/7 London bombers had visited it. But to the desperate people here, the militants of Lashkar-e Toiba are heroes. "The government has done nothing for us," says Said Zurkanian, a resident of Chalabandi. "Only Lashkar has helped us. People died of hunger over there; there was no food for the injured. There are 200 people over there who are urgent need of medical help. If they do not get it they will die. Lashkar is taking it to them." The militants' relief operation is impressively well organised. They have brought their own doctors who have been taken across the river to tend the wounded. The militants take it in turns to work one-hour shifts in teams of eight, ferrying supplies across to Danimay Sahib and bringing out the seriously wounded. "We came here to help our fellow human beings," says one of the Lashkar men, who gives his name only as Babur. He says 500 young men were sent here from the Markaz-e Dawa madrassa outside Lahore, run by Lashkar-e Toiba and known as a recruiting ground for militants. Lashkar smuggles militants across the ceasefire line to mount attacks inside Indian-administered Kashmir. India accused the group of being behind an attack on the Indian parliament in 2002 that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war. But in the ravaged villages of Kashmir, Lashkar is winning hearts and minds as quickly as the Pakistani government is losing them. Rage is spilling over at the government's failure to get help here more quickly. Habib ur-Rehman climbed over the crest of the mountains from his ruined village, Devlian, to get help. He points up at the crossing, dizzyingly high. It took him 10 hours. He said he would try to stay with relatives in Muzaffarabad, then set off on the return journey tomorrow with aid for his family. Three of his brothers died in the earthquake. Volunteers are bringing aid from all over Pakistan. But many say they will not come to the area around Chalabandi, north of Muzaffarabad, for fear of looters.
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