PAKISTAN Utter devastation greets rescuers

The death toll surpassed 20,000 nationwide.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- International relief efforts began to kick into gear late Monday as rescue teams arrived in earthquake-devastated towns of Pakistan's mountainous north, where they witnessed scenes of utter devastation.
Barely a building still stood in the northwestern city of Balakot, which had a population of about 40,000 people, and victims whose bodies were recovered from the rubble were wrapped in white sheets and reburied in mass graves.
In Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir, hungry survivors jostled for food distributed by local government workers. And in Peshawar, a medical emergency was declared to expedite treatment of injured survivors trickling in from flattened rural villages.
Rising death toll
The death toll from Saturday's 7.6-magnitude quake continued to rise, and Pakistan's interior ministry said late Monday that 20,745 had been killed and 47,000 injured nationwide.
The United Nations, meanwhile, estimated that more than 2.5 million people had been rendered homeless as winter approaches in the rugged region.
Rescue teams from Japan, China, France, Hungary and the United Arab Emirates arrived Monday in Balakot and outlying areas and saw bodies still pinned under buildings and large numbers of survivors wandering streets without shelter, food, drinking water or emergency medical equipment.
Airlifts of supplies were expected this morning, when eight U.S. military helicopters, which arrived in Islamabad on Monday from neighboring Afghanistan, were to ferry tents, medicine, blankets and additional equipment to hard-to-reach victims.
Anger appeared on the rise, however, as thousands of desperate survivors continued to await initial aid and heavy equipment to dig out the dead and dying.
In Muzaffarabad, looters reportedly clashed with shopkeepers. And in the Battagram district of the North West Frontier Province, residents said that a Japanese rescue team was preparing to launch body recovery operations but that emergency supplies handed out by the Pakistani Army had proved painfully inadequate.
"The affected population in Battagram district requires about 40,000 tents and blankets, while the army troops left only 40," said resident Ihsanullah Dawar, reached by phone.
President Pervez Musharraf, appealed for public patience and calm.
"For heaven's sake, bear with us," the Pakistani leader said. "There are certain limitations. We are trying our best."
Foreign nations have thus far pledged $100 million in disaster relief aid to Pakistan, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told reporters in Islamabad. Half of that amount came in the form of an initial U.S. pledge for relief and reconstruction announced by the White House late Sunday.
Aziz said Balakot had been the hardest-hit town, and unknown numbers of people were dead in numerous villages that relief teams had not yet reached.
Rehman Khan, a receptionist at the Fairyland Hotel in Naran, around 60 miles north of Balakot, said he saw countless destroyed villages as he walked to Balakot on Sunday. Landslides overturned a dozen trucks on the highway, and the drivers and assistants were dead inside, he added.
A senior Pakistani government official here said that the army engineer corps had moved heavy machinery to open roads in the area blocked by huge boulders and mud.
Hospital sources said that about 40 people with multiple injuries had subsequently been shifted from the Balakot Valley to various hospitals of Peshawar, the provincial capital. Bodies were also being transported across the region for burial.
Injured toddler
Amir Hamza, a 21/2-year-old-boy who suffered serious head injuries and fractured arm, arrived at the neurology ward of the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar late Sunday night. Amir's mother, who has been in coma for the past three days, and his younger sister were admitted to the orthopedic ward.
Amir's father, Maulvi Noorul Haq, said that he had lost three daughters in the earthquake.
"I brought three bodies and buried them near Peshawar," said Noorul Haq, who runs a seminary in Balakot, where the only hospital in the area had collapsed. "People have no food and shelter. I have never seen any relief activities or ambulance service in the area to take out wounded."
At least 81 injured survivors have been pulled from the rubble of the Margalla Towers complex since the quake struck Saturday.