Earth 'swallowed the children'

2005-10-10 12:51

Balakot - The story is the same in village after village in this scenic part of northwest Pakistan, or what is left of them - the earthquake destroyed all the schools.

Hundreds of children died when the 7.6 magnitude quake struck at 08:50 (03:50 GMT) on Saturday, just after they had performed the daily ritual of singing the national anthem and then settled down to lessons.

Some of the cheaply-built concrete schools simply collapsed, while others were engulfed by massive landslides that swept down the mountains and into the river valleys below.

Officials fear many more youngsters remain trapped in the rubble.

"There is no hope of survival for about 350 children who were trapped in the debris in three schools here," said Yameen Khan, police chief of Mansehra, one of the worst hit districts.

'Swallowed by the earth'

"One girls' and one boys' high school in Gari Habibullah town have been flattened. We also know that another school in Balakot was swallowed by the earth."

That is just in three schools.

An AFP correspondent said that the quake had repeated the deadly pattern across the area and that the scale of the disaster was "unimaginable".

In every village around Balakot, the gateway town to the Kaghan Valley tourist region, all the schools were either completely destroyed or very seriously damaged, the correspondent said.

"We had three schools here, a primary school, a middle school and a girls' school. They're all gone," said Mohammed Iqbal, a soldier in Patangi village, about 7km from Balakot.

"Out of 190 children we were able to pull out only 40 alive. The rest are trapped and probably dead."

Abdul Rashid, a government official in Shawal village, nine kilometres from Balakot, said: "Many children from our village went to Balakot and only one of them has come back.

"We tried to look for them yesterday (on Saturday), but there was no way we could get there because of the landslides.

"We couldn't go on foot because of the falling boulders and aftershocks."

The main road into Balakot is blocked by a huge landslide and only very small cars have been able to cross a small bridge across the river.

Situation 'grim'

Villagers said the quake could not have happened at a worse time for the children as it came when they were all due to be inside their school buildings.

The United Nations children's fund (Unicef) said the situation was "grim" in North West Frontier Province.

"A number of schools have collapsed causing casualties and we are concerned about the children because they are vulnerable," Uicef's provincial head Osama Makkawi Khogali said.

The situation was believed to be the same or even worse in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, which is viewed as the worst hit area, although details remain sketchy because all communications and roads are down.

More than 1 000 children are said to be trapped there, a senior regional official told Pakistan's private GEO television.

- AFP