Weather Compounds Quake Misery

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.

Dazed, desperate villagers fought over food packages and looted trucks as the first aid reached this devastated city in the mountains of Kashmir. The Himalayan region was hardest-hit by Saturday's magnitude-7.6 quake.

CBS News correspondent Richard Roth reports that the tables from Muzaffarabad's only emergency room were pulled from rubble. A thousand patients a day lay on them for treatment, beneath ceiling fans supporting drops of I-V fluid while hundreds are waiting around the clock in dusty misery for first aid or evacuation.

Adeel Jaferi, of the Islamic Relief Agency, told CBS News that the biggest problem was getting access to remote areas — the ones the most affected.

"People need food. They need clean water," he said. "They need medication. Obviously, in a situation like this, there's always a threat of disease."

Officials said the death toll from Pakistan's worst quake had surpassed 35,000, with many bodies still buried beneath piles of concrete, steel and wood. Millions were left homeless after whole communities were flattened in the region touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

Three days after the quake, survivors still were being pulled from the rubble of pancaked schools and houses by British, German, French and Chinese rescue teams. A Red Cross official said people could survive under the rubble up to five or even seven days.

A 75-year-old woman and her 57-year-old daughter were rescued after 80 hours in the ruins of an Islamabad apartment tower, and a teenage boy was freed in the northern town of Balakot.

"He's alive!" rescuers shouted with joy as people gave the boy food and water and kissed him on the head. The air smelled of decomposing corpses.

The U.N. World Food Program began a major airlift of emergency supplies, including high-energy bars to feed 240,000 people.

NATO agreed to coordinate an airlift of aid supplies from Europe. Eight U.S. military helicopters based in neighboring Afghanistan shuttled 16 tons of food, water, medical supplies and blankets to quake-hit zones, the military said.

Chinook and Black Hawk choppers flew 102 relief workers and others into the region and evacuated 126 people, said Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, spokesman for the U.S. base at Bagram, Afghanistan.

Roth reports that American helicopters are the only ambulances carrying patients to hospitals outsize the earthquake zone.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said 25 to 30 more military helicopters would be in Pakistan within days. The Islamabad government also requested earthmovers, forklifts, bulldozers and trucks, spokesman Larry Di Rita said.

The United Nations appealed for $272 million in donations, saying 2 million people were homeless. The United States pledged $50 million, Japan $20 million, Canada $17 million and Britain $3.5 million. Other nations donated more helicopters, money and supplies, including tents, blankets, medical aid and food kits.