Pakistan's army was flying geologists to an isolated northwestern valley yesterday to investigate reports of possible volcanic activity after the massive Oct. 8 earthquake that killed about 80,000 people, an official said.
The Pakistani geologists will survey the Alai Valley, and if they find evidence of a volcanic eruption the 150,000 people who live there will be evacuated, said army spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan.
Army helicopters flew over the rugged region of North West Frontier Province on Monday and did not find any signs of an eruption, Sultan said.
PHOTO: AP
An estimated 3.3 million people have been left homeless by the Oct. 8 quake, which has been followed by hundreds of aftershocks that have frightened survivors and periodically triggered landslides.
A huge international relief effort has been mounted, but fears remain for vulnerable communities in distant mountains, with the harsh Himalayan winter closing in.
Despite fresh appeals and warnings of a second wave of deaths, the UN said on Monday it has received less than 30 percent of the US$312 million it desperately needs to help the victims.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan invited ministers to attend a high-level donor conference in Geneva today to mobilize additional financial support.
Cloudy weather yesterday raised concern that rain could fall in the coming days. But Major Farooq Nasir, army spokesman in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, said helicopter relief flights were still operating.
Sultan said it was possible that people in the Alai Valley -- located at a height of about 1,800m and surrounded by mountains as high as 3,000m -- could be mistaking the noise of aftershocks or landslides for the sound of a volcano.
"It could be more prominent in the valley because it is very narrow and aftershocks trigger landslides in the mountains, which have already been cut by the earthquake. It kicks up dust due to which local people believe there could be some volcanic activity," he said.
An official from Pakistan's meteorological department, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media, said there was very little chance of volcanic activity as there was no recent history of eruptions in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, police in the quake-hit Mansehra district, north of Islamabad, have arrested 350 to 400 people over the past two weeks for taking relief supplies -- whether by stealing them outright or lining up to receive supplies more than once, police chief Yamin Khan said.
The arrests have been made in a number of damaged towns since relief started flowing in for quake victims, Khan said.
"We want to ensure that only those who need the aid get it," he said.
Many were later released on bail, another police official said on condition of anonymity. They could face up to three years in jail, he said.
Indian soldiers have set up a relief camp for Pakistani quake victims along the Line of Control dividing the rivals' areas of Kashmir, although the camp remains empty as India and Pakistan try to broker a deal to allow people to cross the militarized frontier.
Also yesterday, a US Army field hospital unit, with more than 130 staff, started treating patients in Muzaffarabad on a mission Washington hopes will help generate goodwill among Pakistanis.
Officials say it is the eighth mobile hospital to set up in the ruined city, and only two patients were waiting at its gate when it opened yesterday morning. The hospital's arrival was delayed by a shortage of aircraft, vehicle breakdowns and the winding roads of the lower Himalayas.
The first of the patients, Aribba Abbasi, a three-year-old girl, was suffering a broken thigh from when her home collapsed on her. The other, Faisal Hussain, an eight-year-old boy, had been caught in a collapsed school and had a bad gash on his ankle. Both had already received treatment but needed aftercare.
The official quake toll currently states that more than 53,000 are dead and 75,000 injured.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS