!~South Asia Quake Victoms ~!. Review on Pakistan, General

On October 8th,2005, Muzaffarabad , Pakistan - Shopkeepers clashed with looters Monday, and hungry families huddled under tents while waiting for relief supplies after Pakistan’s worst earthquake razed entire villages and buried roads in rubble. Death toll estimates ranged from 20,000 to 30,000.

British rescuers unearthed a man trapped in rubble for 54 hours, residents used their bare hands and crowbars to free two girls buried in a school for more than two days and a woman and child were pulled to safety from a wrecked apartment building after 62 hours.

Setting aside a decades-old rivalry, Pakistan said it would accept earthquake aid from India and a top rebel commander reportedly ordered the suspension of violence in earthquake-hit areas of Indian Kashmir. Authorities in New Delhi promised delivery “on a very urgent basis.”

Eight U.S. military helicopters from Afghanistan arrived in Islamabad with provisions, and Washington pledged up to $50 million in relief and reconstruction aid, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said.

“The magnitude of this disaster is utterly overwhelming,” Crocker said. “We have under way the beginning of a very major relief effort.”

The United Nations said more than 2.5 million people were left homeless by Saturday’s 7.6-magnitude quake, and doctors warned of an outbreak of disease unless more relief arrives soon. The hardest-hit area was the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided between Pakistan and India.

Aid effort gathers steam

With landslides blocking roads to many of the worst-hit areas, Pakistan’s army was flying food, water and medicine into the disaster zone. International relief efforts cranked into action, and an American plane full of relief supplies landed at an air base near Pakistan’s capital on Monday.

Most of the dead were in Pakistan’s mountainous north. India reported at least 865 deaths, but Home Secretary V.K. Duggal said it was not expected to rise much higher; Afghanistan reported four.

With the situation dire, Pakistan set aside politics and said it would accept relief aid for earthquake victims from India — backing off of earlier refusals. The nuclear-armed neighbors have been bitter rivals since gaining independence from Britain, fighting three wars, although they have taken several steps to improve relations since last year.

In another apparent gesture of good will, the chief commander in the largest Kashmiri rebel group, the Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen, reportedly ordered a suspension of violence in devastated areas of the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

“We have directed our cadres to halt their operations in the affected areas,” the Kashmir News Service quoted Syed Salah-ud-Din as saying. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Hezb-ul-Mujhedeen is one of more than a dozen rebel groups fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan since 1989.

On Sunday night, suspected Islamic militants killed 10 people, including four Hindus whose throats were slit in three quake-hit villages, said J.P. Singh, senior superintendent of police.

India will send tents, food and medicine and other aid for earthquake-hit areas in the Pakistani portion of Kashmir quickly after Islamabad accepted the offer, India’s Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said in the capital, New Delhi. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said Pakistan’s high commissioner in India has told authorities there “what we need for the victims.”

Shopkeepers scuffle with looters.

In the shattered streets of Muzaffarabad, where at least 11,000 people died, an Associated Press reporter saw shopkeepers scuffle with people trying to break into businesses. They beat each other with sticks and threw stones, and some people suffered head wounds. No police were nearby.

Thanks for reading my review! This was a very tragic thing to happen! Do leave your comments and ratings!! :) In gathering all this info....i have watched loads of TV!!!!

Anusha Out----->

P.S: I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET NO HOMEWORK! I'm not joking now..but this time it is my last review in the next few weeks!! For sure!