HOW TO DONATE: S Asia earthquake - More than 20,000 people are thought to have died in a powerful earthquake in Pakistan, northern India and the disputed territory of Kashmir.

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HOW TO DONATE At least 20,000 are feared dead

Unicef

www.unicef.org

Oxfam

www.oxfam.org.uk

World Food Programme

www.wfp.org

Kashmir International Relief Fund

www.kirf.org

Red Cross/ Red Crescent

www.ifrc.org

Reporters' log: S Asia earthquake

Survivors have spent another night out in the openMore than 20,000 people are

thought to have died in a powerful earthquake in Pakistan, northern India and

the disputed territory of Kashmir. Pakistan's president has appealed for

international help, saying his country cannot deal with the devastating

aftermath on its own.

BBC correspondents in the region report on the impact of the earthquake.

 

Aamer Ahmed Khan : Rawalpindi, Pakistan : 1810GMT

I've now just arrived in Rawalpindi on my way to Bagh. As I left Muzaffarabad

shopkeepers were mounting night-time vigils outside what's left of their stores

to ward off looters. I saw some shopkeepers hurling stones at would-be thieves.

There have been dozens of reports of looters entering damaged houses and making

off with people's goods and possessions. Meanwhile, the exodus from Muzaffarabad

continues. People are still leaving the city in their droves - on foot and in

whatever vehicles they can find. But what is different today is that a stream

of traffic - mostly vehicles carrying relief - is heading in the other

direction, towards Muzaffarabad and other affected areas. In Rawalpindi, the

word is that the big relief operation in now finally underway - specialist

foreign teams are headed to Muzaffarabad.

Mike Wooldridge : Islamabad, Pakistan : 1715GMT

One Pakistani minister admitted today that the government had been overwhelmed

by a disaster that's turned out to be unprecedented in its scale in this

country. But the government also maintains that it's done its best for those in

the worst affected areas given the logistical problems caused by the earthquake.

The authorities here say they now have 20 helicopters in the air engaged in the

relief and rescue operations. And the government says the response so far to

its appeals for international assistance have been encouraging though there's a

desperate need for more helicopters, blankets and shelter in particular. The

international relief operation is gaining pace. More specialist rescue teams

have arrived here to take part in the search for people trapped in the rubble.

Among the countries from which Pakistan has now accepted an offer of help is

India, a highly symbolic move given that the disaster has so badly affected the

region that's caused division and war between Pakistan and India over more than

half a century, Kashmir. On Tuesday the United Nations will launch a flash

appeal in an attempt to further galvanise the international community's

response for the relief work.

Ben Brown : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 1707GMT

Today distraught relatives raced into the city to check on their loved ones as

the roads re-opened, finally cleared of rubble. Bodies are still strewn

everywhere, left where they fell, running from falling buildings. The stench of

death that fills the air is fast becoming unbearable. There are some people

looting on the streets, we saw one man throw rocks at them to drive them away.

People continue to search, even though they don't expect to find too many

people alive now. Mostly what we saw today were local people clawing with their

bare hands. We saw them pull a mother of four alive from the rubble. I asked her

how she survived. I just kept praying and reading the Koran, God has saved me,

she said. Along the main routes people walk away from the city, making their

way to anywhere, it has to be better than what they are leaving behind.

Sanjiv Srivastava : Tangdar, Indian Kashmir : 1629GMT

During the last few hours the biggest problem here has been the weather. There

have been heavy showers, hailstorms, thunder. It is turning very ugly and

inclement here. There is still a large number of people staying out of their

homes, even those with property left intact, they are afraid to return indoors.

This is going to be a dark, long and gloomy night ahead.

Zaffar Abbas : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 1612GMT

The magnitude of the problem is big, really big. Thousands of people are still

on the streets, living outdoors, still hoping for help. No food, no drinking

water, no tents, no blankets and the mood is turning from one of anger to one

of desperation. It is a real desperate situation here.

Nick Bryant : Balakot, Pakistan : 1604GMT

This town where I am has been completely destroyed. The stalls and the shops in

the bazaar are now just a pile of rubble. Behind that a boys school and the

local police station. All now gone too. A Pakistani general has said that 90%

of this town has been destroyed. There is no infrastructure to help rebuild

right now.

Lyse Doucet : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 1532GMT

The soldiers here have been trying in daylight hours to rescue people and

recover bodies. Earlier they pulled one 13 year old girl alive from the

wreckage. This has given hope to many people here, thousands of people staying

here hoping for good news about their family members. The rescue teams have

been joined by international rescuers, including people from Turkey and the UK.

Some medical equipment has been brought in but still people are angry that they

have not had access to medicines yet. We have also seen ordinary individuals

arriving with loads of aid, including rice and water. Citizens from other parts

of the country are trying to do what they can to help.

Sanjiv Srivastava : Tangdar, Indian Kashmir : 1440GMT

Army people are doing their best to send supplies, food packets, medicine even

tents but there's a big gap between what people want and what is coming their

way.

Zaffar Abbas : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 1430GMT

Hundreds of thousands of people will have to spend the third consecutive night

out in the open. Many have lost their children, their wives or husbands and

everyone is looking to the authorities to provide more relief and rescue some

of the survivors buried beneath the rubble.

Andrew North : Balakot, Pakistan : 1415GMT

These are very harrowing scenes across the town. I've seen literally hundreds of

people being pulled from the wreckage of Balakot. Perhaps eighty percent of the

buildings in the town centre have been destroyed and the fear is there are many

more bodies to come out. People haven't given up. But the force of the quake and

the damage it's caused and of course it's the third day, darkness has fallen,

hopes are fading somewhat. There is some heavy machinery and they've opened the

road to get it in but it's not enough for the scale of the task here. Some of

this heavy machinery has been working on the outskirts of the town and

certainly been helpful where it is but there's so much other devastation that

needs to be tackled. Local people, survivors themselves are tearing at the

wreckage with their bare hands. A lot more is needed and in terms of other

kinds of relief, there's very little here. People are looking after themselves.

This evening survivors are sleeping out in the open for the third night. They've

built their own kinds of shelters from what they've managed to salvage from

their homes. There's no organised effort to bring in tents or food supplies by

the government.

Sanjiv Srivastava : Tangdar, Indian Kashmir : 1315GMT

This is an area which is as remote as the other side of the divide in Pakistani

Kashmir. It took us about eight hours to reach Tangdar. It's a completely

mountainous area and as you go downhill it lies in the cusp of a valley with

other villages. Most of them have been completely devastated. There's hardly a

house there that has been left undamaged and a large number of people are dead.

Officially we are being told more than 350 people may have died here but the

number could actually be higher because there's still no access to some

villages high up in the mountains. Survivors really want food, water, medicine

and most of all tents to sleep in because there are hardly any houses that are

left intact. The Indian and Pakistani authorities are not operating together.

Although this region is very close to the border, it's less than 20kms away

from the international line which separates the Pakistani side and Indian side

of Kashmir. The topography is exactly the same. The nature of the difficulties

which officers face is the same. It's a manmade divide but nature has not

spared people on neither side. Army officials are trying to carry relief to the

farthest part and sometimes even carrying rice packets on their backs and

medicine kits, carrying them on foot to higher altitude areas. But the problem

is to get equipment there and to set up hospitals in those kind of areas.

Sanjiv Srivastava : Tangdar, Indian Kashmir : 1257GMT

More than 350 people have died in and around the town of Tangdar, about 175km

north of Indian Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar, making this region the

worst affected by Saturday's earthquake on this side of Kashmir. Many outlying

villages in the high mountain areas are still to be accessed by relief workers

raising fears that the death toll here could rise further. There are deep

cracks in the road, strewn with huge boulders and electric poles. But still the

scale of the damage in the cluster of villages in and around the town of Tangdar

which lies in the Kaspava Valley, only 15km from Pakistani Kashmir, comes as a

shock. Barely a house here is left standing - wood, brick, concrete or stone

structures, none has been spared by nature's fury. Now homeless and many of

them grieving the loss of loved ones, the helpless locals are taking out their

anger on an administration stretched for resources and logistical backup. So,

in some places, food and medicine vans have been looted.

Andrew North : Balakot, Pakistan : 1212GMT

They're talking about a lost generation here in Balakot where most of the town

has been levelled. When the earthquake struck many hundreds of boys and girls

were in their schools and died there, the buildings collapsed on top of them.

The heavy digging equipment that has now arrived is helping but such is the

scale of the devastation that far more equipment is needed and people are

asking why it's taking so long to arrive.

Andrew North : Balakot, Pakistan : 1120GMT

There is more heavy digging equipment in the town. They have managed to find a

road in and the workers are starting to work on some of the rubble on the

outskirts of town. They're still working at the remains of the boys' school,

where it's believed several hundred boys died. I've been watching many of their

bodies being pulled out throughout the day here and some of them are actually

being buried in the grounds of the school. I'm looking over the other side of

Balakot, where there are hundreds of people over what was one of the remains of

the main girls school. And it's the same story there, the girls were all inside

when the earthquake hit and there people are pulling at the wreckage. There's

certainly no heavy lifting equipment there to help them and they are

desperately hoping they will find survivors. There are some signs of hope. I

saw four women taken from the wreckage of the bazaar and also a small baby was

found alive in another part of town. But I've seen many more bodies pulled from

the wreckage. And clearly as time goes on the chances of finding more survivors

fades especially as this place is not getting the attention it needs.

Altaf Hussain : Tangdar, Indian Kashmir : 1100GMT

In Tangdar, most areas are devastated and hundreds of people are homeless. Many

of them have not any relief yet. People said there were bodies under the debris

still. People have stayed out in the open, shivering in the rainy night. The

only water they have drunk is rainwater which they have been storing in used

fruit drink tetra packs. Even when they are getting food, they cant cook it

because they don't have utensils. In one village, people took away 20 bags of

rice from a ration depot. The villagers are still looking for utensils to cook.

People here are very angry with the civil administration - relief is too little

and too late. When an ambulance carrying a doctor and two paramedics reached

Chitrakoot village two days after the quake, they were beaten up by the

villagers and their things taken away. The are full of praise for the army

though for the role the soldiers have played in evacuating injured villagers.

In one place, the air force had managed to evacuate 120 injured people over the

past two days. I saw a truck bringing some injured to a local hospital - the

vehicle belonged to India's paramilitary Border Security Force.

Binoo Joshi : Jammu, Indian Kashmir : 1040GMT

I went to Bakshinagar area to find out that a Hindu resident of Jammu who had

taken the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus across the border on Thursday had died in

the earthquake. The news came in at 14.30 today that Basti Ram Tandon, who was

in his 60s, had died in the quake in a village he was visiting near

Muzaffarabad. Tandon had gone with his brother and one of his sons to visit

relatives across the border. A co-passenger on the bus had passed on the bad

news to somebody who had called up a relative. Tandon was dead, he said. And

his brother and son were severely injured and apparently without much medical

attention. They were the first Hindus to have boarded the bus since the

cross-border service began earlier this year. When I went there, Tandon's

nephew was standing outside the house trying to figure out how to break the bad

news to the family. The family was in a state of shock, anyway, having not heard

anything about Tandon's fate. "It seems death took him across the border," said

the nephew.

Zaffar Abbas : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 1020GMT

We've seen very desperate people and they've all been asking for food and

shelter. Wherever you look buildings have collapsed. Thousands of people are

buried underneath but there are very few rescue teams to pull them out. The

Pakistani authorities say they have prioritised the work; those who are

critically injured are being sent to Islamabad and Rawalpindi for medical care.

We've seen helicopters coming in with relief goods and medical supplies. But

still people need much more. People have spent two consecutive nights out in

the open. There are no tents or blankets. People are getting very angry because

the authorities are unable to help.

Andrew North : Balakot, Pakistan : 1010GMT

Some rescue efforts are starting to step up here but still far less than what is

needed for the scale of the devastation. In the last couple of hours, some heavy

construction equipment has managed to get in but it's only on the outskirts of

Balakot. They really can only make a dent in the scale of the devastation. For

the most part, it is people digging through the rubble with their hands, picks

and shovels. They have managed to find a few people alive but obviously as time

goes on those hopes start to fade of finding more. There is no shelter and no

food. I saw many people leaving the town, in some cases, carrying their dead

with them because they said there was no shelter up here. Those same people

came back into the town today to see if they could find any more survivors and

help out with the rescue effort. People feel that things should be happening

more quickly. The Pakistani military say they are bringing in more troops. All

day I've been seeing helicopters but for the most part they are flying

overhead. They don't seem to be delivering any supplies or dropping off men and

equipment.

Aamer Ahmed Khan : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 0950GMT

The first major sign of help came this morning in the shape of two international

rescue teams, one from Turkey and another one from the UK. But what was being

expected was relief in terms of food and medical supplies. British rescuers

said they had found a 12-year-old boy trapped for the last two days from one of

the buildings on Bank road, the scene of massive damage. The boy has been

airlifted to Islamabad. Rescuers have so far searched nearly a dozen buildings

but have not been able to repeat their early morning success. The young boy's

rescue, it seems, has failed to raise the morale of this place where people are

getting more and more desperate for food and medical aid. Two trucks carrying

food supplies were mobbed by the people at around noon. Scuffles broke out as

no one wanted to miss the opportunity to stack up. There were reports of

looting at damaged shops and abandoned homes. Not just food stores but even

clothes and jewellery shops have been plundered. Theft is fast becoming a

serious concern as many people have woken up this morning to find their already

destroyed homes plundered of whatever the thieves could find. One ray of hope

lies in the fact that tremors seem to have stopped. The last one was felt at

around 4:00 a.m local time. One Pakistan army rescuer said that heavy machinery

has been mobilised now that at least one of the routes into Muzaffarabad is

open. He said specialised equipment for removing debris and knocking down

dangerously damaged buildings is expected to reach the city by the evening.

Zaffar Abbas : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 0927GMT

The epicentre of the earthquake was not far from Muzzafarabad and it has turned

large parts of the city into ruins. Almost every second building has collapsed

and most others have been severely damaged. This has thrown hundreds of

thousands of people out on the streets - many of whom have spent their second

consecutive night out in the open. But with the re-opening of a major road

link, help has started to pour in. A number of foreign rescue teams have also

arrived and their presence is making a difference. Members of the UK-based

charity, International Rescue Corps, have used life-detecting sensors to locate

a thirteen-year-old boy from under the rubble. They are now searching for more

survivors. Rescue teams from Turkey are also involved in similar work. But with

thousands already dead, many here have been highly critical of the government's

relief efforts and say it's too little, too late.

Andrew North : Balakot, Pakistan : 0900GMT

There are helicopters coming here but they are not bringing in a lot of

supplies. The main effort here is mainly from local people, the survivors

themselves. In the last hour or so, some heavy digging equipment has managed to

reach the town and started to get through some of this rubble to try and look

for survivors who may be underneath. Certainly that's what people hope for but

those hopes are not as strong as they were. All morning since I've been here,

we've been seeing many bodies but no survivors being pulled from the wreckage.

It's impressive the way people have rallied around here. What happened here is

many of the survivors around Balakot left because they weren't getting shelter,

they weren't getting the help they needed and they literally walked out because

that was the only way of getting to and from Balakot. And then they came back

today carrying picks and shovels. There were hundreds of people coming in to

help and as the day has gone on the numbers have grown. As I'm looking across

the devastated town of Balakot, I'm seeing literally hundreds of thousands of

people all over the rubble like ants working away trying to dig, hoping there

may be people underneath.

Andrew North : Balakot, Pakistan : 0845GMT

This is the first significant help to arrive in Balakot since the earthquake

struck on Saturday. There are two digging machines in front of me, working away

at the rubble on the outskirts of the town and also two bulldozers have arrived

and they are filling in a large hole in the road into town after clearing away

the landslides that were blocking the road further on. So a path has been

opened. And also, there's a Chinese relief team that has just arrived bringing

in sniffer dogs to start searching for survivors they hope for under the

rubble. But, for the most part, it's mostly survivors, local people, who are

doing the searching, across the rest of the town. A huge area has been

devastated by the quake, perhaps eighty per cent of the buildings are down, and

it's still believed there are many people trapped underneath. They've been

bringing out many bodies but there are still hopes there may still be some

survivors.

Zaffar Abbas : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 0830GMT

More helicopters are bringing in relief to Muzaffarabad and taking seriously

injured people back to Rawalpindi and Islamabad. This operation has continued

since early this morning. On the ground, it is a very critical situation. Every

second house and every second building has been destroyed; others have been

declared unsafe to live. People have spent two nights out in the open. Now the

rescue work is being stepped up. We saw two foreign rescue teams helping the

Pakistani military in the search for survivors, one is from Turkey and the

other is from Britain. The UK team and the international rescue core was able

to find this morning, a twelve year old boy in the rubble after three days.

That has raised hopes that there may be many more survivors beneath the rubble.

They went to a school where it's believed 500 children are buried under concrete

as the earthquake has struck this area. But there was no sign of life there. The

mood here is one of panic, of anger and disgust. People want food, water and

immediate medical help.

Lyse Doucet : Islamabad, Pakistan : 0810GMT

For the international community this is a massive undertaking. Tomorrow the UN

Secretary General will launch a flash appeal to help Pakistan in its hour of

need. The figures are already staggering. More than 20,000 dead; some 42,000

injured. But relief officials here say the numbers could be double if not

triple that. More than two days after a devastating earthquake struck this

mountainous region the entire scale of this disaster is still unfolding. Here

in Islamabad, they are still counting the bodies one by one. In the last few

hours, Pakistani and British rescue teams have taken out two more bodies. Yet

all around this site, anxious families are still awaiting news of their loved

ones. The situation is worth in North Pakistan, where more than four million

people lived and where entire villages have been flattened. Many areas still

haven't been reached by military helicopter or by road.

Geeta Pandy : Delhi, India : 0800GMT

The death toll from Saturday's earthquake in the Indian state of Jammu and

Kashmir has risen to seven hundred and fifty. The chief secretary of the state,

Vijay Bakay, has told a press conference in the state capital, Srinagar, that

seven hundred and thirty-three deaths have been reported from the Kashmir

Valley, whereas seventeen people have died in the Jammu region. He says the

rescue teams have still not managed to reach all the affected areas and some

villages still remain inaccessible. Mr Bakay says army soldiers are involved in

relief and rescue operations and they will be using helicopters to deliver food,

water and tents to those areas which are still not accessible by road.

Lyse Doucet : Islamabad, Pakistan : 0720GMT

The rescue and relief operations is going on here just behind me but it's on a

magnitude that this country has never coped with before. The international

effort is gathering pace. And we've heard heart rending stories of parents

tearing at the rubble with their bare hands. Of course we see here they have

expert rescue teams from Britain and Pakistan but they simply struggling

outside the capital. The rescue operation, the relief effort is only in its

very early stages. We still really don't have a very clear idea of where the

affected populations are, how many people have survived and what they need at

this hour.

Zaffar Abbas : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 0710GMT

Heavy equipment has started to come into the city. These rescuers also told us

that equipment from Islamabad is being sent here. At the same time, we have

spotted trucks are bringing relief supplies here as well. So the situation will

improve gradually but now we've heard complaints from people that villagers are

being ignored outside the city and people say many of the villages have been

badly affected. The villagers are the people that need a lot of help. The

authorities are trying to meet the challenge to cope with the situation but it

is a very desperate situation.

Sian Williams : Islamabad, Pakistan : 0705GMT

The latest figures we have are that 28 bodies have been pulled from the

wreckage, 86 people have been rescued and official statistics suggest 56 people

are missing although that number could change. I've noticed that very different

techniques are being used to than those used half an hour ago. They were using

sound detectors then and we were asked to be very quiet. Now they have the

bulldozers in.

Andrew North : Balakot, Pakistan : 0615GMT

It is very much a scene of devastation here. In the centre of Balakot, probably

eighty to ninety percent of the buildings have been destroyed. I'm at an area

right now that had the remains of what was the boys' school here and all

morning people have been coming to pick through the wreckage with their bare

hands, picks and shovels, hoping to find survivors here. But here in Balakot

there's none of these specialist rescue teams that you have been hearing about

in Islamabad like British teams. There is really no one here except local

people. There are hopes of finding survivors but all I have seen this morning

is bodies being pulled out of the wreckage. There is very much now a smell of

decay across the town because it's believed there are many hundreds, possibly

thousands of people buried beneath this wreckage. There have been several

landslides that have blocked the road here. I got here by walking in over those

landslides, over the remains of the road. Now there's a Pakistani military team

further down which is beginning to clear some of these landslides. The problem

is, closer to the town the road itself is badly damaged so it's going to be

very difficult to get vehicles over once the road is cleared. Helicopters are

needed. There are some which have been bringing in small supplies but they

won't be able to bring the huge equipment needed to lift the kind of rubble

that we've got here. So it's going to take a very long time. Already people are

complaining of what they see is a lack of outside help.

Mike Wooldridge : Islamabad, Pakistan : 0610GMT

Rescue teams as they set off in Islamabad here go in that hope that they will be

search out and find survivors. The real issue is whether all this can happen in

time. It's going to be extremely difficult for them to even get to some of the

places that have been severely affected. That is where the helicopters are

absolutely essential to this process. Whether they arrive here in sufficient

numbers for there to be a chance to rescue people, for aid to get to those who

increasingly urgently need it, that is obviously going to be a key question and

also in the case of this earthquake whether there will be a coordination now

that has not always happened in disasters. In every possible way, this

earthquake is a test of the international community and of Pakistan itself.

Aamer Ahmed Khan : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 0600GMT

I am exhausted, aching all over, drenched in dew and miserably cold, but

compared to those who have lived through all of it, I must feel like a king.

The first thing I encounter on going out is anger. That looks like its going to

be the story of the day. Anger is mounting by the minute. People are angry at

everyone and everything. Till yesterday, there were many who said they were

certain the authorities would soon move in. Today, they only have undisguised

hatred in their eyes - hatred for what has happened to them, hatred for mother

nature, hatred for Pakistan. Many among them have started to wonder if they

were, indeed, the lucky ones. Most of the people have spent the night either

out in the open or in cars. Children, looking excited till yesterday, are now

looking exhausted. Few have been able to sleep. There was a big tremor at 2:30

a.m. followed by an even bigger one at 4:00.A few who have managed to make

contact with relatives or friends in Pakistan are incensed at what they call

"army's propaganda". "Every TV channel in Pakistan is reporting that a massive

rescue effort has been launched," says a man so furious that he can barely

talk. "You are here, you have seen everything yourself. Where is the rescue

effort?" A lone bulldozer has made its way to Muzaffarabad's main bazaar and is

trying to clear the road. The streets have a bad smell to them, ominously bad.

Whatever is there under the rubble, no one wants to talk about it.

Zaffar Abbas : Pakistan-administered Kashmir : 0530GMT

It is a very bad, very desperate situation here. We arrived a couple of hours

ago and since then there has not been a single office building or house that

has survived from Saturday's earthquake. Most of the buildings have collapsed.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been out in the open for the last couple

of nights. They have absolutely no idea as to how many more people are buried

under the rubble. The authorities are trying to provide some help but it is

very limited help that is coming from the Pakistani army and the civilian

authorities. People are really asking for more rescue teams to be sent to

Muzaffarabad if they want to rescue those that survive and are still buried

under rubble. The mood is changing from one of grief to that of disgust and

anger.

Mike Wooldridge : Islamabad, Pakistan : 0501GMT

Across a swathe of northern Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the

third day after the earthquake is bringing growing scenes of grief, of people

who remain trapped in rubble, unburied bodies and the swelling ranks of the

homeless. It's feared their number could rise to a million. Search and rescue

teams from various nations, including Britain, will be trying to dig out

survivors in some of the most devastated areas as they've succeeded in doing at

the collapsed apartment block here in Islamabad. But the more unreachable places

are because of the many landslides, the greater this challenge will be. After

President Musharraf's appeal for international help yesterday, helicopters and

other aid are now starting to arrive.

Andrew North : Balakot, Pakistan : 0442GMT

I am looking at what remains of the main boys school in Balakot. Its green metal

roof has collapsed on top of heaps of wood and stone rubble. Local people are

pulling at the wreckage, just using their hands. They are still finding many

bodies underneath. I just saw two brought out and there are 12 more laid out

nearby. People told me there were several hundred boys here when the earthquake

hit. They believe most of them are dead. The smell of decaying bodies hangs in

the air. It is a similar scene across this devastated town, where at least 80

percent of the buildings have been levelled. Most of the market is destroyed.

Although there are Pakistani soldiers here now, they do not have any heavy

lifting equipment, nor any tents and food and water for survivors. The only way

is by helicopter or on foot - the way I came - because the road is blocked by

landslides. It is a desperate scene here, and local people say they need much

more help from outside.

Aamer Ahmed Khan : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 0342GMT

Help has started to arrive. Locals say 23 military vehicles carrying regular

troops and troops from the Frontier Works Organisation have just entered

Muzaffarabad. They are armed with heavy hammers, pick-axes and shovels. In

teams of 10 to 12, army personnel are seen moving into various parts of the

city. Some are accosted by people asking for food and medicines. They are told

that supplies are on the way. An army officer says they cannot clear the debris

in the main bazaar without evacuating it first. That may be a tough ask, given

that it is the main artery that runs through the city. The officer says that

some partially damaged buildings have become too dangerous and may have to be

razed to the ground. No one, it seems, knows where to begin. But one can feel a

sense of instant relief among the survivors. Help has been a long time coming.

They do not know what kind of assistance they can now expect, but at least

someone is there.

Aamer Ahmed Khan : Muzaffarabad, Pakistan : 0130GMT

A lone bulldozer has made its way to Muzaffarabad's main bazaar and is trying to

clear the road. The streets have a bad smell to them. Anger is mounting by the

minute. Until yesterday, there were many who said they were certain the

authorities would soon move in. Today, they have only hatred in their eyes -

anger at what has happened to them, anger at nature, anger at Pakistan. Many

among them have started to wonder if they were, indeed, the lucky ones. Most

people spent the night either out in the open or in cars. Children, looking

excited till yesterday, are now looking exhausted. Few have been able to sleep.

There was a big tremor at 0230 (2130GMT), followed by an even bigger one at 0400

(2300GMT). A few who have managed to make contact with relatives or friends

outside of the city are incensed at what they call the army's "propaganda".

"Every TV channel in Pakistan is reporting that a massive rescue effort has

been launched," says one man. "You are here, you have seen everything yourself.

Where is the rescue effort?" source credit:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4325640.stm

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