Fading hope

Four days after the devastating earthquake, relief efforts remained chaotic despite huge aid pledges. And UN officials said hopes were fadin...

Four days after the devastating earthquake, relief efforts remained chaotic despite huge aid pledges. And UN officials said hopes were fading for those trapped in flattened towns and villages.

Little emergency supplies have reached desperate survivors due to blocked roads and shortages of aircraft, particularly helicopters. Some of the hardest-hit areas received their first aid yesterday as more helicopters joined the operation, but flights had to be halted for several hours due to torrential rains and hailstorms.

Soldiers temporarily gave up the grim task of gathering corpses from the streets, while private relief groups halted the distribution of food, blankets, clothing and water to victims.

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Officials in the worst-hit areas near Muzaffarabad and North West Frontier Province say the disaster may have claimed up to 40,000 lives. ‘‘Things are improving, but in the areas rescue teams have not yet been able to reach hope basically is fading,’’ said an official, adding, ‘‘Those who are not pulled out by tonight, the chances of survival are very much low.’’

UN officials estimate the quake has left up to a million people homeless and threatened by disease in Pakistan, while 3 million need assistance, many of them children. Survivors from remote towns and villages said the only aid they had seen had been on TV. ‘‘There are bodies everywhere and those who are injured don’t have a drop of water,’’ said Nasar Ahmad, carrying his injured young niece on his back into Muzaffarabad.

Tens of thousands have been forced to camp out on chilly autumn nights, sometimes in driving rain, surrounded by decaying bodies and broken sewerage systems. Muzaffarabad’s health director Khawaja Shabbir said malaria and other diseases were already breaking out, with hospitals wrecked and many doctors dead. ‘‘We’re helpless in handling it on our own as right now we don’t have a single hospital left in Muzaffarabad, no medicine, no paramedic staff, nothing,’’ he said.

Amidst the trauma, scuffles have also broken out among survivors as hundreds of people who have taken refuge at a stadium scrambled for supplies of milk and biscuits being thrown down to them by police atop a van. Later, police were pushed and shoved after they ran out of blankets they were distributing to families with babies. ‘‘There have been some scuffles and some fighting but we are sorting this out,’’ said Assistant Superintendent of Police Naeem Rashid. ‘‘When there is more supply things will go smoother.’’

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In the alleys of the main Medina market, once the bustling centre of the city, soldiers stumbled over bricks and broken cables as they carried the bodies on charpoys.

Traders at the market, meanwhile, complained that their shops had been looted by ‘‘outsiders’’ (non-Kashmiris). ‘‘I ran a communications shop,’’ said Shaheen Iqbal. ‘‘All the mobiles that were not damaged were stolen.’’