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Repair road to PoK, Mufti urges Centre
Drenched quake victims wait for tents
Relief yet to reach Poonch villages
Relief distribution acquires political tinge in Srinagar
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Dead take the last ride
India’s gesture to PoK families
2 journalists go missing in PoK
10 villages still inaccessible in Uri: CM
Distribute aid with honesty: Farooq
Talks with Hurriyat may be delayed
Panun Kashmir on peace in J&K
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Repair road to PoK, Mufti urges Centre
Srinagar, October 12 Talking to mediapersons here today, the Chief Minister said so far 1195 civilian deaths had been reported from the state, 1178 from Kashmir and 17 from Jammu. With the deaths of armed forces personnel, the death toll had already crossed the 1300 mark, he said. Mufti said 4373 persons had been injured. The fully damaged houses were 42720 while 73450 were partially damaged. He said enough relief was reaching the affected areas. Mufti said he had already informed the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh about the need to have the telephone connectivity between the two sides restored. He said the government was in touch with the Pakistan Embassy to know about the welfare of passengers who had travelled from here to Muzaffarabad on the last
Carvan-e-Aman bus before the earthquake. He said the body of a member of the Tandon family, who died there, would be brought back shortly. He said the Prime Minister had announced about Rs 650 crore for their rehabilitation and Ms Sonia Gandhi spoke to all Congress Chief Ministers, asking them to help the affected people in J&K. Several state governments had already sent donations for relief. He said the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh had sent Rs 2 crore while his counterparts in Orissa, Uttranchal, Haryana, West Bengal and Karnataka had sent Rs 1 crore each. The Chief Minister of Assam had sent Rs 50 lakh, he said adding that the Delhi Government had offered to adopt two villages with around 300 houses for reconstruction while the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation had sent 42 tonnes of sugar and 60,000 blankets. He said the relief material received so far from Delhi through various flights include 79765 blankets, 2288 tents, 841 tarpals and 1417 boxes of medicine and IV fluids. |
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Drenched quake victims wait for tents
Tangdhar (Karnah), October 12 While those survive toil for food and shelter, the authorities are still making efforts to reach all those needy and searching for at least 45 persons missing since the tragedy struck. “They are believed to be dead, but still there is a hope”, said a concerned Deputy Commissioner, Abdul Majid Khanday, camping here. The dingy and unmetalled road to Teetwal area a few miles away from here is cut off as the four-km stretch of the narrow road cutting across the mountains has been washed away due to landslides. Relief and rescue teams have been sent on foot but there is no road link. Bodies and injured person are being airlifted by Army choppers to Tanghdhar for treatment. That is the plight of 47,000 population spread over 42 villages of Tangdhar and Teetwal areas, forming the Karnah region as a whole, that is one of the two most affected areas in north Kashmir due to the earthquake. A Concerned Deputy Commissioner of Kupwara district, Abdul Majid Khanday said that 90 per cent structures were damaged due to the catastrophe. The area had already counted for the deaths of 292 including 270 civilians, 19 Army personnel and three BSF men. Those injured included 1015, out of whom over 800 have been discharged after first aid at the local medical camps organised jointly by the civil administration, the Army and the BSF. Till Tuesday afternoon 114 seriously injured had already been airlifted by Army and BSF helicopters to Srinagar for specialised treatment. Most of the dead included women and children, said the Deputy Commissioner adding that there was no count for the cattle-bodies perished in the tragedy. A resident of Gunde Gujran in Teetwal area, Mr Abdul Majeed, a state government officer has been camping here urging the authorities to speed up relief for his area. “I was in Srinagar when the earthquake took place”, he said. Two of his nephews are dead buried alive under the debris of houses, several others injured as their three houses have been razed to ground. “I am trying my best to get help for those needy in the area”, he comments. Soon after the quake the Border Security Force (BSF) launched massive relief and rescue operation by inducting nine medical teams in Karnah and Uria areas with 1900 cooked food packets, 800 Kashmiri roti, 200 blankets, 88 tents, 80 bags cement and medicines worth Rs 1.15 lakh distributed among civil population. More than 1150 civilians were treated in Tangdhar and Uri areas, according to Mr M S Malhi, DIG Baramula Frontier. “This effort was launched despite the casualties suffered by the BSF at various posts along the LoC”, he said. It had lost seven personnel, one is still missing and 35 others were injured in the earthquake, he added. |
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Relief yet to reach Poonch villages
Jammu, October 12 Men, women and children in the worst-affected villages are shivering as they have lost their woollens under the debris of their houses. The weather has suddenly got cooled due to showers in the area since yesterday. Earthquake victims in many villages were spending the cold nights in the open, as the state government has not provided any tents there. Residents of Narkot and Dagwar villages are critical of the government whom they are accusing of discriminating between the earthquake victims of Jammu and those of the Kashmir valley. A local resident, Bashir Ahmed, alleged that the attention of the Centre and the state government was focused towards the valley and there was no one to take care of the people in Poonch. The Union Minister, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, and the Chief Minister, Mufti Sayeed, flew to Poonch two days after the calamity hit the area and offered only the lip sympathy, Bashir said. The victims, particularly in the two villages, require immediate attention of the authorities as the temperature had dipped due to rain. The upper reaches of the surrounding hills had mild snowfall. Shabir Ahmed of the Army is a broken man as he not only lost his six-month-old son but also his house. What is his worry at the moment is that he is scheduled to report back in his unit tomorrow and no one from the civil administration has so far visited the village to provide relief for reconstructing his house. He is worried as to who would look after his wife and a child as houses of their other relatives have also got destroyed. Reports from the Tangdhar and Uri areas of the valley also indicate that the relief and rescue operations have been affected due to snow and rain. The people in Lachhipura and Kamalkot villages are sore that no help has so far come from the government. The earthquake has damaged the bridge leading to the Kamalkot village. The immediate need of the people in these villages was of woollens and tents as most of the houses have collapsed. No help has also reached Mandia village which is situated on the top of a hill ahead of Kamalkot. |
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Relief distribution acquires political tinge in Srinagar
Srinagar, October 12 Senior Congress leaders today alleged that relief material being provided through the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) and the All India Congress Committee (AICC) was being “diverted” by workers of the ruling People Democratic Front to suit its political interests. Addressing media persons at the Srinagar airfield, AICC members Mr Harcharan Singh Josh said that relief material was not being equally distributed in quake affected areas. He accused local administration officials of being hand in glove with the ruling political faction. Stating that there had been some “confusion” over the distribution of relief material, Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Punjab, Mr Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, said that relief supplies being made available by the RGF or the governments of Punjab and Haryana would be handed over to the local Congress leaders for distribution rather than to the district administration. The Deputy Commissioner of Baramulla, Mr Ravi Thusu, who was present at the airfield, however, denied the allegations. He said relief was being distributed properly and the same could be verified. Verbal spats in this regard between party workers and officials were witnessed at the airfield today while relief material was being off-loaded from IAF aircraft. IAF officers involved in relief operations said that they had been witnessing this over the past two days. Mr Sodhi said the AICC had deputed him along with Mr Josh and Punjab Cabinet minister Jagmohan Singh Kang to monitor the distribution of relief supplies. The three arrived at Srinagar today and later met senior police functionaries and Army officers to discuss matters pertaining to the ongoing relief operations. The RGF has flown in eight plane-loads of relief comprising blankets, tents and sugar. Later, Mr Josh said consequent to demands from local people, tin sheets to construct shelters would be dispatched to the affected areas. This, he said, would provide better shelter than tents and tarpaulins. He was also grilled on the failure of local administration officials to reach remote areas even four days after the incident, even though volunteers from NGOs had managed to go there. He added that HUDCO in Delhi was proposing to take up a project to construct dwelling units worth about Rs 250 crore to replace houses which had been destroyed in the earthquake. Meanwhile, the IAF has flown about 400 sorties since October 8, ferrying in almost 500 tonnes of relief supplies and evacuating 475 seriously injured persons. Relief supplies flown in include about 135 tonnes of blankets, 5,000 tents, food, sugar, medicines, power generators and bamboo poles and tarpaulins to erect temporary shelters. About 300 sorties have been flown by helicopters to access remote areas, while the remaining sorties were flown by transport aircraft, mostly operating from Chandigarh, Ambala, Adampur, Pathankot and New Delhi. IAF pilots said there was no dearth of relief material and that they would continue to ferry it as long as there was demand for it. |
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Dead take the last ride
Teetwal, October 12 “The dead can wait their turn, it is the living who deserve the chance to survive” said Sqn Ldr RK Sharma on his fifth sortie of the day to evacuate the injured people from these villages that remained cut off by land even three days after the magnitude 7.6 tremblor triggered massive landslides snapping all road links to this hilly terrain. Around 44,000 persons live in these villages, where except for some army and BSF personnel and the life saving Cheetah helicopters, none has been able to reach so far. The villages presented a desolate eerie site from the air with hapless survivors looking upto the sky expectantly for the choppers against a backdrop of piles of rubble of their flattened houses. A handful of army, BSF and ITBP personnel, who reached the villages on foot were shocked to see the plight of the villagers. “The people were huddled outside their homes in open in sullen silence” said Major Dogra who was among the first to reach these villages. “We just made emergency helipads and then called in the helicopters to take the injured to hospitals. But we do not have the time to dig through the rubble to take the dead out. For us the top priority is to give life to the living”, he said. Brig S S Jog, Commander of Shakti Vijay brigade said that once the process of ferrying the injured to hospitals in Baramula and Srinagar was completed, the army would send in teams of engineers to sift through the rubble to look for the dead. Unprecedented air activity breaks the eerie silence, with army aviation, IAF and BSF Chetaks and Cheetah helicopters forming a virtual mercy air bridge to connect these inaccessible villages. A chopper lands and takes off every five minutes, transporting water, medicines, blankets and food for the survivors and on return ferrying the injured from these quake- marooned villages, which are situated just 25 km to 30 kms from Muzzaffarbad, the capital of Pakistan occupied Kashmir, where lay the epicentre of Saturday’s tremblor. “As the area happens to be on the Line of Control, all links to these villages are fair-weather roads and the rumbling boulders and mudslides which followed the quake have completely erased the tracks for miles. It will take effort to restore these” Brigadier Jog said. “We have fetched specialist teams for the job”, he said. Deputy Commissioner of the frontier district of Kupwara Abdul Majid Khanday, and the Senior Superitendent of Police Sunil Dutt have been camping in nearby Tangdhar. “We have organised relief convoys, but the snapped road links means we can’t reach them”, Mr Khanday said as by daybreak he managed to get a jeep fitted with a loudspeaker to go round some of the villages and announce that the government would provide the affected people free rations for the month. “You don’t have to move out of your houses. We will get the rations and medicines to your doorstep”, the loudspeaker blared, but with thousands of people roughing it out in cold for fear of more shocks, there were few takers.
— PTI |
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India’s gesture to PoK families
Srinagar, October 12 The people had come here by the
Karavan-e-Aman bus barely two days before the killer earthquake struck the region claiming thousands of lives. Worried about the fate of their kin back home, 27 persons, including women and children from five families, left this morning in a special bus for Jammu en route the Wagah border, official sources said, adding that 13 more persons from PoK would join them in Jammu. The step has been taken in view of indefinite postponement of the
Srinagar-Muzzaffarabad bus service due to the blockade of the road at many places, they said. A 9-km road stretch between Jula to Kaman post, the last point on the Indian side, has been blocked by landslides triggered as a result of massive earthquake on Saturday. The officials here said Indian passengers who had gone to Muzaffarabad from Jammu and Kashmir on October 6 would also be allowed to come through the Wagah border by a special bus.
— PTI |
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2 journalists go missing in PoK
Srinagar, October 12 Tariq Maqbool Naqash, the Muzaffarabad-based correspondent of Pakistan’s leading daily newspaper Dawn, and Roshan Mughal, the correspondent of The Nation in the PoK capital, are both missing after the earthquake. Both Naqash and Mughal were members of the South Asian Free Media Association delegation from Pakistan and PoK that visited Jammu and Kashmir for six days in last year. Greater Kashmir Editor Fayaz Ahmed Kaloo said repeated attempts to contact Naqash had failed. “We used all means to contact
Naqash, but to no avail. We have now written to Dawn to inform us about his whereabouts,’’ he added.
— UNI |
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10 villages still inaccessible in Uri: CM
Srinagar, October 12 Addressing a news conference here, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed today said that 10 villages in the border area of Uri are still inaccessible. Mr Sayeed said villages such as Charunda, Uroosa, Lachipora, Chatrasa and Braripora in Uri were still inaccessible. “But efforts are on to reach these villages with relief,’’ he added. The Chief Minister said 95 villages in Uri had population of 1,20,000 while there are 23,000 people in 42 villages of Karnah tehsil.
— UNI |
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Distribute aid with honesty: Farooq
Srinagar, October 12 Dr Abdullah thanked the Centre for the aid to the Jammu and Kashmir government for meeting needs of the affected people. Dr Abdullah has deputed several relief teams to the quake-hit areas of the state. The National Conference’s Chief Patron himself toured the areas worst affected by the October 8 earthquake. The teams have been sent to Uri, Tangdhar, Poonch and Rajouri with clothing, blankets and edibles. Dr Abdullah also advised the teams to reach the quake affected people in far-flung areas.
— UNI |
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Talks with Hurriyat may be delayed
Jammu, October 12 Both the state and the Central Governments are at present engaged in organising relief and rehabilitation programme on a massive scale for the tremor victims in Jammu and Kashmir. The next round of talks between the APHC and the Centre would be held during this month.Since the rehabilitation work would take about two months, the possibility of holding another round of talks with the APHC leaders is remote. A former chairman of the APHC, Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat, said today that: “In the event of the collosal loss to human lives and tribulations, I do not find any scope for the resumption of the dialogue this month “If the relief and rehabilitation programme went well, the talks could be held somewhere towards the end of the next month.” |
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Panun Kashmir on peace in J&K
Jammu, October 12 The Panun Kashmir, which held its working committee’s meeting here today to discuss situation in the state, said that it would support all genuine efforts aimed at restoring peace in the state. The working committee criticised the posturings that bring “ridicule to the legitimate aspirations of the Kashmiri Hindus. |
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Surrendered HM militant shot
Srinagar, October 12 JAMMU: A Pakistani national, Mohammad Abid Hussain (25), was apprehended by the Border Security Force in the Devigarh area of R.S. Pura sector in Jammu and Kashmir last night, official sources said here today.
— PTI |
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Mr Justice Khan takes oath
Jammu, October 12 |
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