Shopkeepers clashed with looters yesterday and hungry families huddled under tents while waiting for relief supplies after Pakistan's worst earthquake razed entire villages and buried roads in rubble. Death toll estimates ranged from 20,000 to above 30,000.
The UN said over 2.5 million people were left homeless by Saturday's monster 7.6-magnitude quake, and doctors warned of an outbreak of disease unless more relief arrives soon.
With landslides blocking roads to many of the worst-hit areas, Pakistan's army was flying food, water and medicine into the disaster zone. International relief efforts cranked into action, with flights carrying rescue teams and supplies arriving in Pakistan.
Eight US military helicopters from Afghanistan arrived in Islamabad with provisions. Washington pledged up to US$50 million in relief and reconstruction aid, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker said.
Most of the dead were in Pakistan's mountainous north. India reported more than 800 deaths, and Afghanistan reported four.
In the shattered streets of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's portion of divided Kashmir, a reporter saw shopkeepers scuffle with people trying to break into shuttered businesses. They beat each other with sticks and threw stones, and some people suffered head wounds. No police were in the area.
Residents said looters were also targeting deserted homes, and even gas stations. Survivors lacked food and water amid little sign of any official coordination of relief in the devastated city of 600,000, where at least 11,000 people died.
About 2,000 people huddled around campfires through the cold night on a soccer field on the city's university campus, where most buildings had collapsed and hundreds were feared buried in classrooms and dormitories.
On the soccer field, Mohammed Ullah Khan, 50, said a few biscuits handed out by relief workers were his only food for three days. His wife, who suffered a fractured leg, was wrapped in a yellow quilt beside him.
Their three-story home had collapsed in the quake. His family of 10 people survived because they were on the top floor, which crashed to the ground.
A doctor, Iqbal Khan, said there was a serious risk of outbreaks of diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia if drinking water and other relief supplies do not arrive quickly.
"These people feel as if there is no one to take care of them," he said.
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White House eager to show swift response to tragedy
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