Home>News Center>World
         
 

Earthquake: Search for survivors calls off
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-10-15 09:04

Rescue workers abandoned the search Friday for survivors trapped in the rubble of last week's earthquake, though individual efforts continued, with an 18-month-old girl pulled out alive from the ruins of her home.


Pakistani rescue workers remove a dead body from rubble of 10-story apartment building that collapsed in the 7.6 magnitude earthquake a day earlier, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2005 in Islamabad, Pakistan.  [AP]

A top U.N. official warned that reconstruction of the devastated region will cost billions of dollars and take up to a decade, and the United Nations increased its appeal for quake aid to $312 million. Weather forecasters said heavy rains expected in the quake zone this weekend could disrupt efforts to provide food and shelter to an estimated 2 million people ahead of the harsh Himalayan winter.

With Pakistan's death toll from the Oct. 8 earthquake estimated at more than 35,000, Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general and emergency relief coordinator, said the search-and-rescue phase was now over. "It's a cruel reality. But after a week, very few people survive," he said.

Still, a doctor, Mazhar Hussain, told Pakistan's GEO television and the British Broadcasting Corp. that his rescue team had pulled the toddler, unconscious but alive, from under the door of her collapsed house, which had protected her. Her mother and two brothers were found dead nearby, but her father survived.

"Her right hand is broken and she has a fracture in her left leg," he said on GEO, speaking from Balimang in the North-West Frontier Province, where the girl was found.

Egeland, who traveled to hard-hit areas, said he feared bottlenecks of relief supplies.

"If we don't work together, we will become a disaster within a disaster," he said. He said it would take billions of dollars and "five to 10 years" to rebuild.

With few survivors expected, the focus of the U.N. shifted to the relief operation.
Page: 123



Franz Muentefering to be German vice chancellor
Soyuz space capsule lands
Japanese parliament's lower house passes postal reform bills
 
  Today's Top News     Top World News
 

Shenzhou VI fine-tunes orbit on the third day in space

 

   
 

Ministry: Big differences with US remain

 

   
 

Substantial results expected at G-20 meet

 

   
 

Tibet rail construction completed

 

   
 

Snow advises to save less, spend more

 

   
 

China reports 126,808 HIV/AIDS cases

 

   
  Blackout, attacks mar eve of Iraq vote
   
  Earthquake: Search for survivors calls off
   
  HP recalls 135,000 laptop battery packs
   
  Ousted Ecuador leader arrested upon return
   
  Russian troops comb city for militants
   
  WHO urges calm over new bird flu discovery
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Related Stories  
   
Pakistan: Whole generation lost in quake
   
South Asia earthquake kills at least 30,000
   
Quake kills more than 19,000 in South Asia
   
Quake jolted South Asia, killing more than 30,000 people
   
Quake kills more than 18,000 in South Asia
  News Talk  
  Are the Republicans exploiting the memory of 9/11?  
Advertisement