Earthquake in Pakistan

I had written about this when I first heard about it (here). There was not much news at the time but as word got out, we found out that it was a big one -- over 30,000 people killed and huge numbers of buildings damaged. Here is the report from the Mayor of Muzaffarabad in Kashmir. From the South African IOL News Service and Reuters:

'Kashmir has turned into a graveyard'
Sikander Hayat Khan says he is prime minister of a graveyard, surveying his ruined capital from a tent where he has slept since a weekend earthquake destroyed towns and villages across Pakistani Kashmir.

Critics say the prime minister of Azad Kashmir, or Free Kashmir as Pakistan calls it, is little more than Islamabad's puppet, but that doesn't lessen Khan's sense of responsibility for his people in the aftermath of the catastrophe.

"It's the biggest natural disaster. It has totally paralysed Kashmir," he told Reuters in the tent on the lawn of his official residence in the small city of Muzzafarabad.

"For the first two days we have been either digging ground to recover bodies or digging to bury them."

"Kashmir has turned into a graveyard."

Survivors throughout the Himalayan region are living in fear of aftershocks, and Khan's aides persuaded him to abandon the residence in case it collapsed around him.

Burying the dead and relocating the homeless are top priorities for Khan, although his own administration has been rendered totally helpless by the destruction of infrastructure, communications and transport links.

Like others, he expects the death toll to go well beyond 20,000 in Kashmir alone, without counting the dead from neighbouring North West Frontier Province.

Ahead lies the risk of more deaths from disease and exposure for the nearly 1.5 million Kashmiris affected by the quake on Pakistan's side of the ceasefire line with India.

Khan welcomed India's offers of help as a positive sign for the peace process with Pakistan. The two countries have fought three wars since partition in 1947, two over mostly Muslim Kashmir.

However, despair over the tragedy his people faced could not erase ingrained distrust of India's motives.

"They offered us help on humanitarian grounds and I hope that there should be no politics involved in it," Khan said.

Muzaffarabad, a city of 100,000, is without power, without water, and food is getting scarce.

The sewerage system was ruptured by the quake, and residents have no option but to seek what privacy they can find amidst the rubble or behind bushes when they need a toilet.

"We are fearing epidemic diseases if the situation remains unchanged. Water is polluted, dead bodies are still under debris, we are trying to control the situation but magnitude of disaster is very great, so we are unable to do it quickly."

Khan reckoned it would take up to six months to complete the rescue and relief work, and meanwhile temperatures are dropping and by the end of this month Kashmir's harsh winter will have begun.

It has been a busy year starting with the Tsunami and now this...