Bad Weather Hampers Quake Relief

Heavy rain and hail forced the cancellation of some relief flights to earthquake-stricken regions Tuesday, as the bad weather compounded the misery in the Kashmir region along the India-Pakistan border devastated by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake Saturday.

Meanwhile, hungry survivors didn't wait for the Pakistani relief trucks to unload their cartons of food and water in the quake-shattered city of Muzaffarabad on Tuesday. Instead, they mobbed the vehicles in the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, jostling and grabbing whatever they could. "We need food! We need food!" one desperate man shouted.

Relief supplies are reaching some areas that were badly hit by the massive earthquake and a huge influx of international aid into Pakistan has begun, but aid workers and police are struggling to prevent the distribution degenerating into chaos.

Officials now estimate the death toll could surpass 35,000. The Indian army said the bodies of 60 road workers were found Tuesday in a bus buried in a landslide during the earthquake.

The scene at a soccer stadium, one of six official distribution points in the regional capital of Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, showed how deep the desperation runs.

People tried to clamber onto the back of one relief truck even as it drove down the street. Some drivers left the area rather than let the mob overrun their vehicles.

"I can't wait for the food to be distributed properly," said Ali Khan, a construction worker who has barely eaten for days. "I need it desperately and I'll take it."

In the latest of a series of remarkable rescues, emergency workers in the northern town of Balakot pulled a teenage boy from the rubble, 78 hours after Saturday's quake.

"He's alive!" rescuers shouted as people gave the food and water to the boy and kissed him on the head.

Two survivors, a 55-year-old woman and her 75-year-old mother, also were pulled from the rubble of a 10-story apartment building in Islamabad, 80 hours after they were buried. They did not appear to have suffered serious injuries.

A French search team on Monday rescued at least five children buried in a collapsed school in the northern town of Balakot, said Eric Supara, an official at the French Embassy in Islamabad.

Earlier in the day, U.S. military helicopters, diverted from neighboring Afghanistan, helped ferry wounded from the wrecked city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-ruled Kashmir.

The helicopters are a key contribution, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Roth, because they have heavy lifting capability and are able to carry larger amounts of cargo up to the earthquake zone and also bring back greater numbers of wounded for treatment.

International rescue teams joined the search for finding survivors. Teams of Britons, Germans and Turks used high-tech cameras to scan under piles of concrete, steel and wood.
Thousands of civilian volunteers, some carrying picks and shovels on the shoulders, walked north toward quake-hit towns.

On both sides of the border, there's a shortage of power equipment — cranes, bulldozers, earthmovers — which might still save people.

In Srinager, the capital of Indian Kashmir, CBS News reporter Ranjan Gupta says soldiers were using their bare hands to remove rocks and debris to try to rescue people who may be in flattened homes, "as they have nothing else to use."

The worst-hit region was Kashmir, a divided Himalayan territory of about 10 million people claimed by both India and Pakistan. Islamic rebels opposed to Indian rule of its part of the largely Muslim region have fought a 15-year insurgency that has claimed more than 66,000 lives. India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir.

Kashmir's highest Islamic leader Tuesday made a tearful appeal to India and Pakistan not to let politics interfere with helping earthquake victims in the disputed region, and urged them to launch joint relief efforts.

"Let's not play politics over this," said Mirwaiz Omar Farooq.

About 10 trucks from the Edhi Foundation, Pakistan's largest privately run relief organization, parked near the soccer field and workers began to unload bags of rice, sugar, cooking oil, cartons of drinking water. It was the first major influx of aid since the monster quake struck, destroying most homes and all government buildings in this city, and leaving its 600,000 people without power or water. Most have spent three cold nights without shelter.

But plans for an orderly distribution of the aid from the Edhi Foundation quickly collapsed. The aid officials and half a dozen police tried in vain to fend off a crowd of up to 300 people, mostly men, who converged and grabbed the supplies.

One man made off with a big sack of sugar, another left on a motorized rickshaw with a big crate of drinking water. Nobody was injured in the chaos, and police took a lenient view of the crowd.

"They are not criminals. They're normal people and they're hungry," said army Brig. Ashraf Pabbasun. "As more relief goods arrive, the situation will improve. Yes, this needs to be organized."

"I think everybody here (in Islamabad), who's been reading this and look at these pictures, understands that these are people who need this," said CBS News' Fahd Husain.

U.N. officials also warned of a possible measles epidemic and the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhea, as the water and sanitation system is heavily damaged.

"Measles could potentially become a serious problem," said Fadela Chaib, spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. Measles is endemic in the region and just 60 percent of the children, for whom the disease is often deadly, are protected. At least 90 percent coverage is needed to prevent an epidemic, the WHO said.