Burial shrouds airdropped
2005-10-10 16:08
Buniyar - Authorities air-dropped burial shrouds and food on Monday to remote villages hit by the weekend's devastating earthquake, as the death toll climbed to 865 in Indian Kashmir.
But three days after the magnitude-7.6 tremor struck the Himalayan region, little help had reached outlying communities where villagers complained that food and water supplies were gone and some of them organised their own expeditions for supplies.
In a reminder that the region is in the grip of an Islamic insurgency, suspected militants killed 10 people, including four Hindus whose throats were slit in three quake-hit villages, police said.
More bodies were recovered in remote villages reached by relief workers on Monday, bringing the civilian death toll to 794, said India's home secretary VK Duggal in the capital New Delhi. Besides, 71 defence personnel also died in the quake, he said.
Duggal said 2 430 people were injured and around 5 000 homes and buildings damaged or destroyed. Relief has been sent to most areas, but "there may be scattered inhabitation which have not been covered so far", he said.
"As road accessibility improves, we hope to reach these villages by tomorrow. There may be some more casualties but not too many more," he said.
Free rations for worst-hit areas
Authorities have delivered rice, flour and sugar, part of it dropped by military aircraft over remote villages, said Vijay Bakaya, the top official of Jammu-Kashmir state in Srinagar, the summer capital.
He said the worst-hit areas will get free rations for one month.
In addition, 2 250m of shrouds - pieces of unstitched cloth required by Islam for burial - also have been air-dropped, he said.
Some 5 000 tents have been provided, far short of the 15 000 needed, he said. The remaining were being dispatched from other states, said Bakaya.
In the village of Gingal, an Islamic political group set up a feeding station and a medical clinic. Residents were given bread, rice and cooked potatoes, while volunteers handed out blankets, baskets of food, milk, soap and toothbrushes.
Other villagers were forced to organise their own relief efforts.
"It has been three days and nothing is at our village," said Buniyar villager Mohammed Zafra, who hired a car to get supplies from Uri, the nearest large town.
"We have no water. We are running out of food," Zafra said as he tried to fend off angry villagers who mistook him and his car - now piled high with blankets, food and cooking supplies - for an aid supply.
"Nothing has come to us, nothing!" shouted one woman, a blue veil covering her hair, as she banged on the hood of his car before being pushed away by two policemen.
Street protests
Nearby, irate residents blocked roads for the second day to protest the tardy assistance.
Army doctors said they had treated more than 400 people, about 50 of them with serious wounds. The Indian military has between 500 000 and 700 000 troops in Kashmir to quell a Muslim separatist insurgency.
The insurgency has continued, claiming lives that were spared by the earthquake.
On Sunday night, suspected rebels barged into the homes of two Hindu families, dragged out five male members and cut their throats with daggers in Rajnagar, said JP Singh, senior superintendent of police.
In another village, attackers killed four members of a Hindu family, said Singh. Also, Nazir Ahmed, a Muslim, was shot to death by suspected rebels in a third village.
All the attacks took place in a cluster of hamlets where 100 homes were toppled by Saturday's earthquake. There were no deaths in those communities.
More than 66 000 people have died in the insurgency for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Muslim-majority Pakistan since 1989.
- AP