Strong aftershocks rock quake-shattered Pakistan

Reuters, Wed Oct 19, 2005 12:52 PM BST

By Faisal Aziz

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Aftershocks rocked earthquake-wrecked northern Pakistan on Wednesday, but survivors at least had one reason for hope as Islamabad and New Delhi agreed the border dividing Kashmir should be opened to help them.

Pakistan's relief commissioner said the official number of dead due to the October 8 earthquake rose by around 6,000 to 47,723.

There were no reports of deaths in what were the strongest of dozens of aftershocks since the quake devastated Pakistani Kashmir and adjoining North West Frontier Province.

But there were landslides in both areas, making life even harder for soldiers trying to rebuild crumpled roads into the high hills, where countless thousands of survivors still wait for help.

At one of their toughest jobs, in Kashmir's Neelum valley, the tremors sent scree rattling down the hills onto the short stretch of the 160-km (100-mile) road they had managed to clear.

Even without more landslides, officers in charge of the work said it would take weeks to drive on the road up the valley. That means large quantities of aid, beyond the capabilities of a growing helicopter fleet, will not be delivered.

With the harsh Himalayan winter looming and the heavy tents needed to house hundreds of thousands of homeless people in short supply, the tremors added to the misery.

But people in Muzaffarabad, the ruined capital of Pakistani Kashmir, were cheered by Pakistani's President Pervez Musharraf's dramatic call on India to open the heavily militarised border which separates the bitterly divided region.

India's prompt agreement gave hope the Line of Control (LOC), a cease-fire line which divides Kashmir and families, would be opened, help would pour across and many relatives would be able to meet each other for the first time in decades.

"It would be a fantastic thing," income tax official Azhar Mehmood said in a typical comment. "If you are here when they actually allow Kashmiris to cross the LOC, you'll see for yourself how important this decision is for the Kashmiri people."

However, there was no word on when the two nuclear-armed countries, which have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, would sit down and talk about how to do it.

DIFFICULT CROSSING

India also suffered in the quake, with at least 1,300 confirmed dead in its part of Kashmir.

But roads are badly damaged and so is a bridge at the solitary border crossing, so it was not immediately clear how long it would take to set up any movement across the frontier.

India and Pakistan embarked on a peace process to resolve all issues at the start of 2004, including their core dispute over Kashmir, which both claim.

Progress has been slow.

Since the earthquake, both governments have been criticised for letting ingrained distrust get in the way of opening up new routes to get relief supplies to beleaguered communities cut off in the Neelum and Jhelum valleys near the Line of Control.

Pakistan is accepting aid from India, but refuses to let Indian troops join the rescue work on Pakistani soil, despite the struggle to clear the way into valleys and areas too narrow for helicopters to fly into safely.

Pakistan still needs more helicopters to drop supplies and bring out casualties, but New Delhi turned down its request for helicopters without crews.

"We have accepted all assistance except military men coming across and one should not grudge that," Musharraf said on Tuesday night as he called for the de facto frontier in Kashmir to be opened.

Despite a steady stream of aid from abroad, Pakistan is still short of tents and blankets, fearing for the lives of tens of thousands of people stranded in the uplands without adequate food and shelter and snow already falling on mountaintops. Injured people are dying for lack of medical care, doctors say.

Major-General Farooq Ahmed Khan, federal relief commissioner and Musharraf's point man in the crisis, said Pakistan also desperately needed at least 100,000 anti-tetanus shots.

Thousands of survivors were still living in the open in cold night temperatures, "some with open or gangrenous injuries and with little access to clean water", the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

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