PAKISTAN: Pakistan appeals to India to allow earthquake victims to cross the line of control in Kashmir

Record ID: 870084

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Pakistan appeals to India to allow earthquake victims to cross the line of control in Kashmir
  • Date: 19th October 2005
  • Summary: SOUNDBITE (English) WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME WORKER MIA TURNER SAYING: "People have come down from the mountain and we're very concerned in this area. It's not that it hasn't any food, they have their own foodstuffs but they don't have enough and the big concern is that winter is on the way."
  • Embargoed: 3rd November 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • City:
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA1HL4XAS8DL4U26YST9OEUG2AH
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Helicopter after helicopter thunders through the skies of Pakistani Kashmir on Tuesday (October 18), taking urgent relief to desperate survivors of one of the worst catastrophes to strike the country.
    But 10 days after the disaster that killed at least 41,000 people, the army is engaged in far less dramatic, along mountainsides where they have been obliterated by landslides.
    Without them, relief cannot be dispatched deep into the hills in sufficient quantities to feed, clothe and shelter enormous numbers of people before the harsh winter sets in. From Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, clearing roads through the Neelum and Jhelum valleys, where untold numbers of people remain isolated, is progressing. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf appealed to India to allow earthquake-stricken Kashmiris to cross the Line of Control which divides the two countries and families. "We will allow any amount of people coming across Line of Control," he told a news conference in the destroyed Pakistani Kashmir capital of Muzaffarabad. "If India agrees, we would like to work out the formalities." Meanwhile supplies continued to be dropped by air to earthquake survivors who have been cut off by landslides and flooding caused by recent torrential rains.
    At the village of Kumi Kot in a valley about 30 kilometres from Muzaffarabad a spotter plane flew over before a military helicopter flew over and dropped several loads of relief aid.
    Soldiers pulled a young girl alive from the rubble more than a week after the deadly earthquake, officials said on Tuesday (October 18), rekindling hopes that more survivors could still be found.
    Six-year-old, Taj-un-Nisa, was rescued on Monday (October 17), nine days after the quake struck her village near the town of Balakot on October 8. Except for a bandage over a head wound the girl seemed otherwise physically unhurt. Another young girl was found alive on Sunday (October 16) at another a village near the devastated town in North West Frontier Province.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register