World Rallies For Quake Victims
Relief supplies poured into Pakistan from about 30 countries Wednesday, including from longtime archrival India. Better weather aided the relief effort, after rain and hail grounded efforts Tuesday.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday promised long-term U.S. help for Pakistan after an earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people.
Also on Wednesday, a strong aftershock hit Pakistan's capital of Islamabad. Buildings moved for a few seconds during the short temblor, and it was not immediately clear what magnitude the aftershock was, or whether it caused any damage.
Rice predicted more U.S. earthquake aid for Pakistan beyond an initial $50 million but gave no specific figures or timeline. Tens of thousands were believed killed in Saturday's quake, with millions left homeless after entire communities were flattened in the region touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday also announced a $17.5 million increase in Britain's aid to victims of the South Asian earthquake.
Japan, in addition to its $20 million pledge, promised Wednesday to send up to three helicopters, four transport planes and more than 100 soldiers to help distribute aid and evacuate earthquake victims at risk of disease from crowded and unsanitary living conditions.
"Japan would like to give as much aid as possible," Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said.
Among other large industrialized countries, Canada has pledged $17 million and Germany $5.2 million. Germany also said it was sending two helicopters and about 50 troops — most of them medical experts — into Pakistan from neighboring Afghanistan.
The U.S. aid is already making a difference: many of the supplies were loaded aboard eight U.S. Chinook helicopters to be brought into the disaster zone. One American soldier in Islamabad told CBS News correspondent Robert Berger he had come from hurricane relief duty in New Orleans.
CBS News correspondent Robert Berger flew aboard a U.S. helicopter relief flight.The Pentagon expects to send 25 to 30 more U.S. military helicopters to Pakistan from Afghanistan, Bahrain and other countries in the region.
The big American choppers, which can carry as many as 65 people, more than double the efficiency of the evacuation operation. Roads to the earthquake zone are choked by the very manpower and supplies meant to provide relief, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Roth. Helicopters remain the region's cargo carriers and ambulances, bringing supplies in and victims out.
"It just seems like there is no end to the casualties they have up there for us," said U.S. Chief Warrant Officer Mark Jones. "Each aircraft that goes up there is bringing back 30 to 40 casualties and there's always more when we leave. We always have to turn people back."
Four days after Zarabe Shah's home crumbled on her, rescuers on Wednesday pulled the dust-covered 5-year-old out of the rubble, a shot of good news as hopes faded of finding other earthquake survivors. "I want to drink," the girl whispered.
Zarabe's neighbors on Tuesday recovered the bodies of her father and two of her sisters. Her mother and another two sisters survived.
Many bodies were still buried beneath leveled buildings, and the United Nations warned of the threat of measles, cholera and diarrhea outbreaks among the millions of survivors.
The 7.6-magnitude quake on Saturday demolished whole communities, mostly in the Himalayan region of Kashmir. The U.N. estimated that some 4 million people have been affected, including 2 million who have lost their homes.
"We are in need of tents and sleeping gear," Aziz told the BBC from Muzaffarabad, "and that we are spending all of our energies to get from all over the world."
Despite the influx of aid, residents in Muzaffarabad were desperate, mobbing trucks with food and water and grabbing whatever they could. The weak were pushed aside.
"We can't get it out fast enough for them. We come back here and try to make as many trips a day as we can. We won't get enough up there," said Jones.
"Step by step, we are getting there. It's a process that has to be done in an orderly way. Relief will reach the people," Aziz said.
Jan Vandemoortele, U.N. Resident Coordinator for Pakistan, said key roads into the quake zone that were blocked earlier have been opened up. U.S. military spokesman Col. James Yonts said that with the resumption of flights, helicopters had been able to unplug any backlog of aid.
About 30 countries- including the United States, France, Japan, Jordan, China, Russia, Iran, and Syria — have sent relief equipment, doctors, paramedics, tents, blankets, medicines, disaster relief teams. Many have also pledged financial assistance.
"Relief material is moving in," Vandemoortele said in Islamabad. "It is getting there. Roads are open now. They were blocked until very recently. We have several trucks that are all loaded and on the road now."
A transport plane bringing tents, medicines and other relief goods from archrival India — also affected by the quake, but less severely than Pakistan — arrived at the air base, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam.
But one U.N. official believes there is a need for a better worldwide relief fund.
That need has become especially pressing because a spike in natural disasters in recent years, including more hurricanes, has strained the international relief system, said Hansjoerg Strohmeyer, chief of staff to Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland.
"Quick money is lifesaving money," Strohmeyer said. "The system is stretched."
More than 1,400 people have died in India's part of Kashmir, and the offer and receipt of the aid by Pakistan reflects warming relations between the nuclear-armed rivals, which embarked on a peace process early last year.
The Pakistani government's official death toll was about 23,000 people and 47,000 injured, but a senior army official who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the figure publicly said an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 people had died.
Rescue workers fanned out of Muzaffarabad by helicopter to remote regions of Kashmir. Among them were eight teams from the British International Rescue Corps, which has found 16 survivors since arriving in the quake zone nearly three days ago.
"As time goes on, hope will get less and less. But you always do get miracles," said Ray Gray, a stocky man in a blue uniform and helmet, as he prepared to board a chopper. "Even if we just find one person, the whole effort is worth it."
Vandemoortele said there have been no reports of epidemic outbreaks so far but the area's health infrastructure has completely collapsed, he said.
In one field clinic alone, 2,000 patients had been treated, most of them for broken arms or legs. It's too early for onset of disease, but officials are fully aware of the potential threat, he said.
The tables in Muzaffarabad's only emergency room were pulled from kitchen rubble, reports Roth. A thousand patients a day lay on them for treatment, beneath ceiling fans supporting drips of IV fluid.
"We don't even have the gloves to put on, we just scrub our hands," said Dr. Neem Zia. "I've seen awful sights. The patients who are brought here are hungry, they are hungry for three days. No food no water, no shelter."