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Rescue efforts wind down in Pakistan
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-14 20:21
Many exhausted relief workers were dealing with the added burden of fasting
during daytime hours for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Maj. Farooq Nasir, an army spokesman in Muzaffarabad, said the search and
rescue operation had ended. Army officials in Balakot, another of the
hardest-hit towns in northwest Pakistan, said they were shifting the rubble of
collapsed buildings and removing dead bodies.
But Abdul Akbar, a senior official at the Federal Relief Commission — a newly
created body based in the capital Islamabad to oversee relief operations — said
rescue operations were continuing alongside relief work.
Water and electricity were restored to parts of Muzaffarabad, a city of about
600,000. Authorities were also working to fix grid stations to bring power back
to outlying villages.
The country's relief commissioner, Maj. Gen. Farooq Ahmad Khan, said Pakistan
expected to get 2 million blankets and 100,000 large tents before the onset of
winter. He said 200,000 houses had been destroyed.
From daybreak, Pakistani military helicopters and
choppers from other countries flew in and out of a sports stadium in
Muzaffarabad, where a temporary hospital had been set up. The choppers carried
out injured people from remote villages and ferried aid workers to isolated
regions.
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