Tens Of Thousands Dead, Injured In Massive Asia Quake

[NATO AIR]

Prayers go out to the victims, their families and the first responders who are trying desperately to save lives.

prayer also for the pakistani government, because if it cannot handle this disaster well, it may collapse to the fundamentalists due to popular unrest.

And it is encouraging that the Indians are keen to help in any way they can...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9626146/

18,000 killed in massive Asia quake
‘A national tragedy,’ says Pakistan Army spokesman after 7.6 temblor

Updated: 11:27 p.m. ET Oct. 8, 2005
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A powerful earthquake triggered landslides, flattened entire villages of mud-brick homes and toppled an apartment building on Saturday, killing more than 18,000 people as it devastated a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor rose sharply Sunday as rescuers struggled to dig people from the wreckage, their work made more difficult as rain and hail turned dirt and debris into sticky muck. Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan’s chief army spokesman, told Pakistan’s Geo TV network early Sunday that more than 18,000 had been killed — 17,000 of them in Pakistani Kashmir, where the quake was centered. Some 41,000 people were injured, he said.

For hours, aftershocks rattled an area stretching from Afghanistan across northern Pakistan into India’s portion of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing tremors could cause more damage.

The earthquake, which struck just before 9 a.m. Saturday, caused buildings to sway for about a minute in the capitals of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, an area some 625 miles across. Panicked people ran from homes and offices, and communications were cut to many areas.

Most of the devastation occurred in the mountains of northern Pakistan, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of the capital, Islamabad, in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir.

“It is a national tragedy,” Sultan said earlier. “This is the worst earthquake in recent times.”

In Mansehra, a shopowner named Haji Fazal Ilahi stood vigil over the body of his 14-year-old daughter, which lay under a sheet on a hospital mattress. He said his wife, another daughter and a brother also died when the family’s house fell.

“I could see rocks and homes tumbling down the mountains,” said Ilahi, who was driving to his village of Garlat when the quake struck. “When I reached my village, there was nothing left of my home.”

India’s government offered condolences and assistance to Pakistan, a longtime rival with which it has been pursuing peace efforts after fighting three wars since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

“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,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a message to Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
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[Lefty Wilbury]

look on the bright side maybe bin ladens cave collapsed on him

 

[sagegirl]

look on the bright side maybe bin ladens cave collapsed on him

Love to the wilburys