Pakistan Grateful For Quake Aid

As eight U.S. military helicopters arrived in Islamabad with provisions and Washington pledged up to $50 million in relief, Pakistan on Monday thanked the international community for sending rescue teams and relief goods to help survivors of a 7.6-magnitude quake that killed thousands.

"We are overwhelmed by the international community's response to our appeal for the help for Saturday's quake victims," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said at a news conference.

Many countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, Germany and Russia, have sent experts, food, medicines and other relief supplies to Pakistan.

The first cargo plane with U.S. aid arrived from Afghanistan Monday, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Roth. America is also sending the helicopters that Pakistan has urgently requested.

"Thousands of people have died, thousands are wounded, and the United States of America wants to help," President Bush said from the Oval Office Sunday.

Mr. Bush didn't specify an amount, but the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan said Monday that the United States will provide up to $50 million for earthquake relief and reconstruction in Pakistan.

"We have under way the beginning of a very major relief effort," Ambassador Ryan Crocker said.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had appealed for international aid Sunday in response to the earthquake that devastated the country's mountainous northeast, calling especially for cargo helicopters to bypass roads blocked by mudslides.

Musharraf said Pakistan needed medicine, tents, cargo helicopters and financial assistance to help survivors, the news agency Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

"We have enough manpower, but we need financial support," Musharraf said.

Asian Development Bank president Haruhiko Kuroda said the bank would reallocate $10 million for immediate emergency assistance in the worst-affected areas of Pakistan.

The European Union on Sunday committed $4.4 million in emergency relief.

"We have a duty to get help as quickly as possible to the people whose lives have been turned upside down," EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said.

Many countries quickly assembled aid and readied it for transport to the mountainous region, where landslides are reported to be making access extremely difficult.

The U.S. C-17 that landed Monday carried blankets, water containers, winterized tents, and other relief supplies. A second C-17 and two C-130s are scheduled to arrive in Pakistan on Tuesday. Other military relief missions were scheduled to follow.

Some teams reached Pakistan on Sunday, including a Russian rescue team, the first contingent of a British emergency rescue team and a U.N team of disaster coordination officials who set up three emergency centers.

"We have to be quick," said U.N. spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs.

The World Health Organization said it has provided Pakistan with two emergency health kits, which will provide essential medical supplies to care for a total of 20,000 people for three months.

It said it would send five more kits as well as packages to cover 1,000 surgical operations in coming days. The kits will help Pakistan cope with injuries even though hospitals have been destroyed and health workers are among the casualties, WHO said.

The Pakistani military said planes from France, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and China had also landed Sunday, bringing rescuers, sniffer dogs, earth moving equipment, medicine, food and relief goods.

A Spanish group, United Firefighters without Frontiers, said its rescue team had already arrived in Islamabad with two field hospitals and two tons of emergency equipment. Japanese, South Korean, Afghan and an additional Russian team of rescue workers and medical aid were expected late Sunday and Monday.

The Swedish Rescue Services Agency was sending tents and blankets and the Czech government said it was ready to send rescue teams with dogs.

The Malaysian Red Crescent said it was sending a relief team to Pakistan as soon as it received clearance from Islamabad, and that the team would be joined by Red Cross and Crescent workers from other Southeast Asian nations, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore.

The South African aid group Gift of the Givers planned to send a 15-member medical team as well as a donation to relief efforts in Pakistan.