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11 Oct 2005 09:12:05 GMT

Death and desperation in remote Kashmir villages

Kashmiri people wait to walk on the mountains to reach their villages, in the village of Kamsar in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, October 11, 2005. Villagers trekking down from the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir spoke on Tuesday of extensive death and destruction from the weekend's earthquake in areas still not visited by rescue workers or authorities.

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Kashmiri people wait to walk on the mountains to reach their villages, in the village of Kamsar in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, October 11, 2005. Villagers trekking down from the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir spoke on Tuesday of extensive death and destruction from the weekend's earthquake in areas still not visited by rescue workers or authorities.
REUTERS/AHMAD MASOOD

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Kashmiri people walk on the mountains to reach their villages in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, in the village of Kamsar October 11, 2005. Villagers trekking down from the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir spoke on Tuesday of extensive death and destruction from the weekend's earthquake in areas still not visited by rescue workers or authorities.

PREVIOUS | NEXT

Kashmiri people walk on the mountains to reach their villages in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, in the village of Kamsar October 11, 2005. Villagers trekking down from the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir spoke on Tuesday of extensive death and destruction from the weekend's earthquake in areas still not visited by rescue workers or authorities.
REUTERS/AHMAD MASOOD

A Kashmiri man carries his wounded child from a mountain village to the city of Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, in the village of Kamsar October 11, 2005. Villagers trekking down from the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir spoke on Tuesday of extensive death and destruction from the weekend's earthquake in areas still not visited by rescue workers or authorities.

PREVIOUS | NEXT

A Kashmiri man carries his wounded child from a mountain village to the city of Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, in the village of Kamsar October 11, 2005. Villagers trekking down from the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir spoke on Tuesday of extensive death and destruction from the weekend's earthquake in areas still not visited by rescue workers or authorities.
REUTERS/AHMAD MASOOD

By Robert Birsel

KAMSAR, Pakistan, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Villagers trekking down from parts of the Kashmir mountains that have not been visited since the weekend's earthquake say they have left behind scenes of death and desperation.

The death toll in Saturday's 7.6 magnitude earthquake in northern Pakistan and India stood at at least 21,000 people on Tuesday but that may not include large parts of the region that are still inaccessible because landslides have swept away roads.

"There are dead bodies everywhere and those who are injured don't have a drop of water," said Nasar Ahmad, who was carrying his injured young niece on his back into Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

A landslide shortly after the earthquake struck swept about 200 people to their deaths in the Neelum river that flows by his village of Kotali, he said.

The army was trying to reopen the road that runs along the river, on one steep side of the Neelum Valley. Many people were gingerly walking over the landslide, while an army bulldozer tried to cut a new road at Kamsar, about five km (three miles) from Muzaffarabad.

Some people were trying to get to Muzaffarabad to get help while other were desperate to go the other way, up the valley, to reach their homes.

"I don't know what happened to my family," said one young man who was in Muzaffarabad when the earthquake struck.

"The government won't be able to open the road for a year. I have to go now," he said as he hurried off across the landslide.

A volunteer at the site said three people had been killed in a landslide there on Monday.

NO SIGN OF LIFE

Many of the settlements along the Neelum river are occupied by refugees from Indian Kashmir who fled to the Pakistani side in the early 1990s when an insurgency by Muslim separatists fighting Indian rule intensified.

"There's no sign of life from here all the way back," said Abdul Majit, referring to his village of Hariala.

"There's no food, no electricity, we only have the clothes we're in. No one has reached them," he said.

The relief effort is gathering pace but access to remote villages is likely to be a huge problem for many days to come.

Mohammad Altaf was trekking in to Muzaffarabad from Budman village to try to get help. He said he had no money but would seek assistance from the government and aid groups.

"The main problem is food," he said.

"We've buried 250 to 300 people and hundreds more are still missing, buried under the rubble," he said.

A small settlement just below the road where he was speaking had been destroyed. Tin roofs holed and smashed by falling rocks. Soldiers were using sledge hammers to smash their way through the collapsed concrete roof of a nearby school.

Across the valley, destroyed homes were perched on the edge of a landslide. Several had been swept away, and a trail of debris and their tin roofs were all that remained.

Anger over what is widely seen as the failure of the government to respond to the disaster quickly has been intensifying but the authorities too were not spared by the quake.

An army camp not far down the Neelum river from Kamsar was virtually flattened and 17 soldiers died there, said policeman Mahmud Bashir Kiani, standing by dozens of freshly dug graves near the camp.

Kiani said 66 members of his family had been killed. Only three survived.

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