Story of earthquake in India. Now he doesn't dare come near it. Last evening, a group of village rescuers, sifted a part of the rubble only to find...
Now he doesn't dare come near it. Last evening, a group of village rescuers, sifted a part of the rubble only to find his wife Rakshanda, dead. "I have lost everything. My wife, my house, the cattle and all other belongings," he says in a choked voice.
But there is no one to console Rehan. Every villager has the same story to tell. Saturday morning's earthquake at India flattened all the 200 houses sparsely constructed in the mountainous Kalgai and Ramgai villages. The villagers have buried seven bodies but have no count of the injured. Worse, they have not eaten anything for 36 hours but have no energy to sift the eatables from the wreckage. Taps have dried up but the intermittent drizzle made their night stay outdoors cold and wet.
The earthquake has left a trail of death and devastation in the entire Uri belt. Touch any village-Kamalkote, Dharkote, Lagama, Dacchi, Madian, Jabla, Dulanja, Isham, Gharkote, to name a few, and witness the dance of death. People are burying their beloved ones and also trying to escort the injured ones to hospitals.
There are scores of missing persons, presumably under the rubble of collapsed houses. Each passing moment diminishes their chances of survival.
One of the most ill-fated villages is Sultandakki. When the villagers buried 3-year-old Shaheena's body in the local graveyard, the death toll crossed 35. Another 55 villagers are missing. Every house has turned into a grave for its inmates. A villager pointed towards a heap of rubble to show that six members of a family are lying buried. "We have not seen any member of this family. We suspect they are all dead," villager Fida Hussain said.
Troops joined by local people on Sunday struggled to access remote villages and sifted through rubbles of flattened houses pulling out more bodies in quake-hit Kashmir Valley as the death count in the killer tremblor leapfrogged past 600.
The picture of more death and devastation unfolded as Army and air force personnel accessed areas hitherto untouched by rescue efforts even as fresh tremors jolted parts of Jammu and Kashmir, keeping up the panic among residents.
Braving rains, panic-stricken victims spent overnight under the open sky complaining of poor response from the administration in providing relief.
There is scarcity of food material, water and medicines. The 200 tents, which the state administration said they had dispatched to the affected villages were not visible anywhere. "The Army and police helped us in evacuating injured persons but there is no other help," lamented Mukhtar Ahmad, a local engineer.
Local MLA and state's Public Distribution Minister Taj Mohiuddin confessed that the relief and rescue measures were disproportionate to the magnitude of the disaster. "We need 30,000 tents to cope with the situation. We are pooling all our state resources, and have made requests to the Army and the Central Government in this regard," he said. He said that the relief material is pouring in and the crisis would be managed.
"We attempted to drop food material from helicopters but the experiment failed as most of the villages are located on hill slopes," he said, adding that the people had no food or water.
Many villages complain that authorities are focusing on Uri town, which was comparatively less affected. Villagers at Lagama, which is dominated by Hindu Brahmins, alleged that the authorities completely ignored their village and no one had come there to inquire about the welfare of the village. "All the houses in our village have collapsed. Women and children are on the roadside but authorities are unconcerned," said an angry Ganpat Raj.
By Vipin Agnihotri
Published: 10/10/2005
Japan's 8.9 magnitude quake triggers tsunami - video | World news ...
TV pictures show a vast wall of water carrying debris and even fires across a large swathe of coastal farmland near the city of Sendai.
But there is no one to console Rehan. Every villager has the same story to tell. Saturday morning's earthquake at India flattened all the 200 houses sparsely constructed in the mountainous Kalgai and Ramgai villages. The villagers have buried seven bodies but have no count of the injured. Worse, they have not eaten anything for 36 hours but have no energy to sift the eatables from the wreckage. Taps have dried up but the intermittent drizzle made their night stay outdoors cold and wet.
The earthquake has left a trail of death and devastation in the entire Uri belt. Touch any village-Kamalkote, Dharkote, Lagama, Dacchi, Madian, Jabla, Dulanja, Isham, Gharkote, to name a few, and witness the dance of death. People are burying their beloved ones and also trying to escort the injured ones to hospitals.
There are scores of missing persons, presumably under the rubble of collapsed houses. Each passing moment diminishes their chances of survival.
One of the most ill-fated villages is Sultandakki. When the villagers buried 3-year-old Shaheena's body in the local graveyard, the death toll crossed 35. Another 55 villagers are missing. Every house has turned into a grave for its inmates. A villager pointed towards a heap of rubble to show that six members of a family are lying buried. "We have not seen any member of this family. We suspect they are all dead," villager Fida Hussain said.
Troops joined by local people on Sunday struggled to access remote villages and sifted through rubbles of flattened houses pulling out more bodies in quake-hit Kashmir Valley as the death count in the killer tremblor leapfrogged past 600.
The picture of more death and devastation unfolded as Army and air force personnel accessed areas hitherto untouched by rescue efforts even as fresh tremors jolted parts of Jammu and Kashmir, keeping up the panic among residents.
Braving rains, panic-stricken victims spent overnight under the open sky complaining of poor response from the administration in providing relief.
There is scarcity of food material, water and medicines. The 200 tents, which the state administration said they had dispatched to the affected villages were not visible anywhere. "The Army and police helped us in evacuating injured persons but there is no other help," lamented Mukhtar Ahmad, a local engineer.
Local MLA and state's Public Distribution Minister Taj Mohiuddin confessed that the relief and rescue measures were disproportionate to the magnitude of the disaster. "We need 30,000 tents to cope with the situation. We are pooling all our state resources, and have made requests to the Army and the Central Government in this regard," he said. He said that the relief material is pouring in and the crisis would be managed.
"We attempted to drop food material from helicopters but the experiment failed as most of the villages are located on hill slopes," he said, adding that the people had no food or water.
Many villages complain that authorities are focusing on Uri town, which was comparatively less affected. Villagers at Lagama, which is dominated by Hindu Brahmins, alleged that the authorities completely ignored their village and no one had come there to inquire about the welfare of the village. "All the houses in our village have collapsed. Women and children are on the roadside but authorities are unconcerned," said an angry Ganpat Raj.
By Vipin Agnihotri
Published: 10/10/2005
Japan's 8.9 magnitude quake triggers tsunami - video | World news ...
TV pictures show a vast wall of water carrying debris and even fires across a large swathe of coastal farmland near the city of Sendai.
