The most powerful earthquake to convulse India in half a century has killed 8,000 people and the toll keeps rising, with thousands of victims trapped under buildings, Star Television and officials said yesterday.
Rescue workers battled to pull people from the debris while officials announced an ever-increasing number of dead as reports came in from remote towns near the epicenter of the quake, which hit the western state of Gujarat on Friday.
PHOTO: AFP
The US Geological Survey said it measured 7.9 on the Richter scale.
An officer at the police control room in Ahmedabad, Gujarat's commercial center, said the final death toll could be above 10,000.
Worst hit was Bhuj, a coastal town of some 150,000 people near the Pakistan border and about 20km from the epicenter.
Along the cracked roads leading to Bhuj, collapsed houses and buildings dominated the landscape. In Pachchao, a once prosperous town of 40,000 people 70km from Bhuj, about 90 percent of the buildings had collapsed.
"There is nothing left between the sky and the earth any more. Everything has been demolished," said Dawood Ismail Siddhi.
Injured people and affected families were sleeping in the open in the villages along the road as army convoys including ambulances and water tankers moved in large numbers towards Bhuj.
Survivors pushed handcarts carrying their injured relatives, desperately seeking medical help. The many temples that dot the countryside have been either damaged or have collapsed. In every village people wander stunned, muttering that all is lost.
Television reporters, giving the first news from Bhuj since the earthquake severed its communication links, reported widespread devastation and said up to 6,000 were feared dead there alone.
Among them were more than 100 air force personnel at an air base and in surrounding civilian areas, an official said.
In Ahmedabad, rescue workers and survivors clawed away at the rubble, passing chunks of concrete and bricks along a line.
But in many places it was too late. Rescue workers spoke of voices which had gone silent in the night, as they carried on the grim task of pulling dead bodies from the rubble.
Star News Television said that around 30 children were still trapped under the rubble of a collapsed school.
Many Ahmedabad residents expressed anger that recently constructed buildings had been built illegally, flouting regulations meant to limit the risk of collapse in this earthquake-prone zone.
"This building is only three or four years old, they only got permission for three storeys but it had four storeys and a basement," said Abhay Rajput, as workers pulled yet another dead body from the rubble.
Hospital officials said it was becoming steadily more difficult to cope with the torrent of patients and corpses.
"This was probably one of the worst experiences I have ever had -- you could call it the longest day," said Anil Chadha, superintendent of Ahmedabad's Civil Hospital.
"The worst part was looking at those 50-odd bodies that arrived in one big gush."
Many people had died of asphyxia or were trampled in stampedes, doctors said.
The state's vital oil installations escaped unscathed but operations at Kandla, India's busiest port, were damaged.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee appealed to relief workers to help quake victims on a war-footing, and offers of help flowed in from several countries as well as from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Pakistan military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, setting aside differences with nuclear rival India over the disputed state of Kashmir, sent a message of sympathy to Vajpayee.
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