ABC Australia:
Thousands feared dead in quake
Thousands of people have been killed in a massive earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale which shook parts of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, flattening houses and sweeping whole villages away.
The quake, one of the strongest to rock the region in decades, has triggered landslides and buried people in the rubble of ruined buildings.
The epicentre struck close to the dividing line between the Indian and Pakistani-controlled zones of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir but the quake was felt hundreds of kilometres away in Afghanistan's Kunduz mountains.
The Pakistani Army said several thousand people were feared dead in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, which appeared to bear the brunt of the quake.
"This kind of devastation has never been seen in Pakistan's history before," chief military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said.
"The death toll could be in several thousands in Kashmir alone," he said. "The loss of life as well as property could be colossal and we need urgent help."
With rescue efforts ongoing, and electricity and communications cut off in much of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, it was too early to get a precise death toll. But an army relief official said earlier that it was more than 1,000.
Elsewhere, police said more than 1,700 people were killed in Pakistan's North West Province while nearly 300 died in the Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir, pushing the confirmed death toll above 3,000.
'A test for all of us'
The first quake was followed by 18 aftershocks over the next 10 hours with magnitudes of between 4.6 and 6.3.
They were felt across the subcontinent, shaking buildings in the Afghan, Indian and Bangladeshi capitals.
The US Geological Survey described the quake as major, saying it took place at a depth of 10 kilometres.
Ghulam Rashool, an official at the Pakistan Meteorological Department, said it was the strongest earthquake in the subcontinent since the 1905 Kangra earthquake that killed 20,000 people in India's Madhya Pradesh state.
"It is a test for all of us ... the entire nation," said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Late at night, hours after the quake struck in mid-morning, rescue workers battled the darkness and raced against time to find survivors. Untold numbers were left homeless.
Many of those who survived were left crying and shouting in agony, knowing their loved ones had died.
"I was working in the field close to a building when I felt the jolt and saw houses tumbling down to the ground," said Wali Rehman from the village of Ug in North West Frontier Province.
"I know my mother and my family have died," he said, weeping.
'Village after village wiped out'
India and Pakistan, rivals that both have the atomic bomb, have fought two wars over Kashmir, where thousands of troops face off on each side of the Line of Control that divides the territory.
But in a message to President Musharraf, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered help with rescue and relief operations.
"While parts of India have also suffered from this unexpected natural disaster, we are prepared to extend any assistance with rescue and relief which you may deem appropriate," Mr Singh said.
A Pakistani Army official said about 200 Pakistani soldiers were dead.
"Village after village has been wiped out," said another official in Muzaffarabad, the main town in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. "The Neelum River has been blocked because whole villages have fallen into the water."
A spokeswoman for the United Nations said a team of experts was en route to Islamabad to help coordinate relief efforts, while the European Commission said it could approve up to $4.8 million to help.
Many countries sent their condolences, as did United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, who said he was "deeply saddened by the loss of life and destruction".
Witnesses said the temblor lasted for more than 30 seconds in Islamabad, where two multi-storey apartment blocks collapsed, trapping bloodied residents under huge slabs of stone.
"We saw people rushing to a balcony on the other building but while it was still rocking, it crashed down and the occupants came down with the mass of the concrete," local resident Sajida Burki said.
"There were screams of women and children."
More than 80 people were pulled alive from the rubble but a government official said rescuers also found the bodies of 10 people.
"The quake jolted me awake and I saw people running down the staircase," said Sabahat Ahmed, a resident of one of the blocks.
"By the time the second tremor hit, the building had already started to collapse.
"As the building was collapsing people were still coming out from it," said Mr Ahmed, who spoke as residents struggled to shift heavy concrete with their bare hands.
A girl was killed in Afghanistan but authorities said the country appeared to have escaped the worst.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1477792.htm
Aceh again, dammit!
I know it makes geological sense, but enough already.
And, the earth hurts in Guatemala, too:
Mudslide buries 1400 in Guatemalan village
October 9, 2005 - 11:11AM
About 1,400 people died under a huge mudslide in the Guatemalan village of Panabaj that was triggered by torrential rains from Hurricane Stan, the fire brigade said today.
"There are no survivors here. It happened more than 48 hours ago. They are dead," brigade spokesman Mario Cruz told Reuters.
The landslide engulfed the Maya Indian village on Wednesday in a fatal quagmire of mud, rock and trees, in places 12-meters thick.
"According to the figures they gave me yesterday, approximately 1,400 people have disappeared," Cruz said.
The deaths nearly tripled earlier estimates of the toll of storm-related fatalities in the poor, Central American nation. Stan claimed another 67 lives in El Salvador, 15 in Mexico, 10 in Nicaragua and four in Honduras.
Large swaths of land in Central America and Mexico were flooded and dozens of mountain villages were hit by mudslides after days of downpours.
The storm was a low-strength Category 1 hurricane and soon fizzled out but it dumped enough rain on Central America to be a killer.
The region is particularly vulnerable to rain because so many people live in precarious, improvised dwellings dangerously close to riverbeds and on mountainsides.
AdvertisementHurricane Mitch killed about 10,000 people in Central America, mostly in mudslides, in 1998.
Rescue workers, struggling through roads blocked by mud, only reached Panabaj today, two days after the tragedy.
Exhausted villagers and firemen dug with spades looking for more victims but it was difficult to find bodies. They were considering abandoning the search and declaring the area a mass grave.
Another 40 people died at the nearby hamlet of Samac.
The tops of lampposts and trees poked through a river of mud covering Panabaj.
"There are no children left, there are no people left," said teacher Manuel Gonzalez, whose school was destroyed. "There were only houses here, for as far as you could see. ... It makes you lose hope."
The area is popular with US and European tourists visiting the nearby Lake Atitlan, a collapsed volcanic cone filled with turquoise waters.
Some families woke in the middle of the night to rumblings from the volcano's slopes and managed to escape, but others were buried alive when a wall of mud crushed their homes a few hours later.
"If somebody had told us to leave, maybe the people would have got out. But they said nothing. Nothing," screamed Marta Tzoc, who grabbed her five children from their home and fled in time.
Across the region, mud-coated bodies piled up in morgues while survivors sobbed and said they needed food and water. Many did not know what had happened to relatives and were desperate for news.
Reuters
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/mudslide-buries-1400-in-guatemalan-village/2005/10/09/1128796395164.html
And, casualty estimates rise again in Asia:
Quake toll soars to 18,000
October 9, 2005 - 1:15PM
More than 18,000 people have been killed in Pakistan in the huge earthquake that shook parts of South Asia, military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told CNN.
Sultan also told the American broadcaster that some 41,000 people had been injured in Pakistan in yesterday's quake, which measured at least 7.6 on the Richter Scale.
"More than 18,000 dead and 41,000 injured. Most of the casualties have occurred in Kashmir followed by North West Frontier Province," Sultan said, warning the toll could go far higher.
Meanwhile, Indian military officials in the Indian-controlled zone of Kashmir have so far confirmed at least 300 people dead in the region from the quake.
There were also scattered reports of casualties in towns and villages across northern Pakistan, India and southern Afghanistan.
Earlier reports said thousands had died when the massive earthquake shook parts of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, flattening houses and sweeping whole villages away.
Thousands more were believed injured as the quake, one of the strongest to rock the region in decades, triggered landslides and buried people in the rubble of ruined buildings..........
Story continues
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