Afghan President Hamid Karzai brought help yesterday for Pakistani victims of the massive earthquake that killed tens of thousands, as relief workers pulled more corpses from the rubble and the UN warned that 800,000 people remain without shelter.
The US army began setting up a field hospital and Pakistan's army said it planned to send another brigade -- usually about 3,000 soldiers -- to Muzaffarabad, the capital of its portion of Kashmir -- to help in the relief effort and the grueling task of clearing debris, army spokesman Major Farooq Nasir said.
Eighteen more bodies were found in collapsed buildings in the city on Sunday, he said.
PHOTO: AP
Two children from a displaced family suffered burns over 80 percent of their bodies when their tent caught fire in the northern town of Balakot late on Sunday, according to another spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan.
Army helicopters using night vision equipment quickly evacuated them to a military hospital but one, a 12-year-old girl, died yesterday morning from her injuries. The other, a boy about age 7, is in critical condition. Seven other people burned in the fire were shifted to a hospital on Monday. It was unclear what caused the fire.
Aftershocks
Powerful aftershocks were still rattling the region more than two weeks after the 7.6-magnitude temblor wrecked a huge swathe of northern Pakistan and the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, killing an estimated 79,000 people, including 1,360 on the Indian side.
A magnitude-6.0 quake rocked Pakistani-held Kashmir on Sunday. No one was killed in that aftershock, but an earlier tremor on Sunday killed five people in Afghanistan's eastern Zabul Province near the Pakistan border.
The Afghan president arrived in Islamabad yesterday for a one-day visit and talks with President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. Karzai brought 5 tonnes of medicines and medical equipment, as well as 30 doctors and nurses who will travel to the quake zone, said Rafiullah Mujaddedi, an official in the president's media department.
Some 100 US soldiers arrived in Muzaffarabad yesterday in a 40-vehicle convoy to set up the army's only Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or MASH. Three isolation units had to be left behind as the winding road into Kashmir wasn't wide enough, but the MASH still has a capacity for emergency care and operations, and beds or cots for up to 84 patients.
On Sunday, US General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, said the US would step up its relief efforts. He said 11 more Chinook helicopters would join the existing 17 US helicopters flying missions into the quake zone.
In an unusual convergence of appeals, al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, urged Muslims to send as much aid as they could to quake victims in Pakistan, despite Musharraf's alliance with the US in its war on terrorism.
Al-Qaeda appeal
"You should send as much aid as you can to the victims, regardless of Musharraf's relations with the Americans," Osama bin Laden's deputy said in a recorded message broadcast on al-Jazeera TV.
More than 3 million people are believed homeless after the quake. Rashid Kalikov, UN coordinator for humanitarian assistance in Muzaffarabad, said 800,000 of those people still had no shelter whatsoever, with winter looming.
The tragedy is pushing Pakistan and India to lay aside their differences. The two were inching closer to a deal in which they would overlook their long-standing dispute over Kashmir for the sake of helping the quake victims, allowing them to cross the disputed border.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to