Miracles In The Rubble

Using metal cutters and bare hands, soldiers on a last ditch search Monday dug out a brother and sister who survived 10 days under the rubble after India's killer earthquake, living off crackers and water.

The team of 20 soldiers had been touring Bhuj, a city flattened by the Jan. 26 quake, when they heard faint sounds from under a pile of rubble.

"Everyone had given up hope of finding any survivors. This is a miracle," said Bakshi Singh, inspector general of the Border Security Force.

Clearing away broken masonry and twisted metal with their hands and cutters, the soldiers found the man and woman, siblings who appeared to be in their 50s.

"They were too much in shock and couldn't say who they were," said Singh. They had survived off a small box of crackers and some water, he said.

The dramatic rescue came even as demolition teams were clearing away the ruins of collapsed apartment buildings in Bhuj and other towns of India's western Gujarat state, and as authorities turned to the monumental task of sheltering some 600,000 people left homeless by the quake.

The government is promising to build tent cities, but many of the quake victims are doubtful and have returned to their homes despite government warnings that the buildings are not safe.

The 7.9-magnitude earthquake, which was centered 12 miles from Bhuj, has killed more than 17,000 people, and the toll is expected to rise to 30,000 as more bodies are found when rubble is cleared, said Gujarat's Home Minister Haren Pandya. The injured numbered 66,758, Gujarat state officials said, estimating 34 million of the state's 45 million people have been affected.

The dead have been cleared from all but three of 400 villages in the region most affected by the quake, and nearly all of the remaining bodies were still buried in larger towns. The recovery of bodies was expected to end midweek.

Authorities began ambitious plans to relocate thousands of people from devastated villages to new settlements, selecting sites and lining up the materials and equipment.

But first, officials were urging quick action to stop millions in the zone devastated by the quake from moving to other parts of the country in search of food and shelter, straining support systems elsewhere.

"Immediate relief is required in the form of tents and plastic sheets, or else people will begin to flee the region," said P.K. Lahiri, the principal secretary to Gujarat's chief minister, Keshubhai Patel, the state's top elected official.

AP Quake victims at a relief camp in Khavda wait for supplies to arrive.

Respiratory infections are spreading among survivors, but health officials said there are no indications yet of an epidemic.

Massive communal kitchens have sprouted up around the quake zone. In Ahmadabad on Monday morning, 500 people gathered at a kitchen for breakfast. Women sat on the floor, making fried bread while cooks stirred pots of potato and vegetables.

Systems are slowly coming back to life. Electricity, for example, has been restored to 80 percent of the affected areas, which were plunged into darkness after the temblor, officials said.

State officials on Monday focused on the future: building new towns to replace those destroyed in the quake.

Crack teams of officials and engineers were surveying villagers to plan the new face of the quake-ravaged countryside and rebuild structures.

"We are going in military style. We will give priority to those who want the rubble removed from their present villages and stay there," said M.S. Patel, a senior official supervising relief efforts. For those moving, an estimated 400 new settlements will mushroom across the worst-affected region of Kutch, where homeless villagers are now sleeping in tents and in the open on the dew-soaked ground.

Almost 125 international agencies, Indian voluntary groups and individuals have offered to bring money and equipment to foster the new settlements until they are in place. Land is identified but work is likely to begin only by April, officials said.

But an end to the misery will not come anytime soon.

"We are far from being on the way to recovery," said Lahiri. "Millions of people are without any place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear or any kind of social security."

Gujarat state officials plan a large Hindu ceremony Wednesday to pray for victims of the quake.

More than 60 Hindu seers will chant ancient Vedic hymns and sing devotional songs around a fire pit, to mark the 13th day of India's worst natural disaster in five decades.

"According to Hindu theology, the soul that exits the body transmigrates to a higher realm after the 13th day," explains Param Tattva Das, who is a Sadhu, a Hindu holy man.

© MMI Viacom Internet Services Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press and Reuters Limited contributed to this report