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BHUJ, India
(Reuters) - Up to 15,000 people are feared to have died in a massive
earthquake that cut a swathe of destruction across western India.
Officials
were unable to give an accurate death toll from Friday's quake,
the most powerful to hit India in half a century, as reports of
more deaths came in from remote areas in the western state of
Gujarat.
Narendra
Modi, Secretary General of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
said he believed 15,000 may have died, including 13,000 in the
marshy coastal district of Kutch near the epicentre of the quake.
"I have
come to the conclusion that we will cross 13,000 in Kutch alone
and elsewhere maybe 2,000 more," Modi, who had just completed
a helicopter tour of the region, told Reuters in Ahmedabad, the
commercial capital of Gujarat.
Star Television
quoted federal Defence Minister George Fernandes as telling reporters
he also feared 15,000 had died.
If confirmed,
the death toll would rival the numbers killed in a powerful earthquake
in Turkey in August 1999, when more than 17,000 people were killed.
Many of the
dead were in Bhuj, a town of some 150,000 people near the Pakistan
border and about 20 km (12 miles) from the epicentre of the quake.
But preliminary reports said that even worse affected was Anjar,
a small town of about 30,000 people.
Police said
some 350 schoolchildren and 50 teachers out on a school parade
had been buried in Anjar when the earthquake hurled debris into
the small alley where they were marching. Another 50 had been
pulled out alive.
"In
Anjar, you can't find a single house intact," Modi said.
Much of Bhuj
had also been reduced to rubble, and many of those buildings left
standing were badly cracked. Seismology experts said nearly 200
aftershocks had been recorded by mid-morning, but their frequency
was declining.
Facing another
night without water or power, and living in the persistent fear
of aftershocks, survivors were desperately trying to get away.
Tempers frayed as crowds gathered at petrol pumps trying to get
fuel to fill up scooters, cars, autorickshaws and jeeps.
Earlier a
number of people were rescued from the rubble, including five
pulled out 24 hours after the quake. But the soldiers and rescue
workers combing the debris were beginning to give up hope of finding
more people alive.
"We
are basically recovering dead bodies," an official said.
The earthquake,
measured at 7.9 on the Richter scale by the U.S. Geological Survey,
felled buildings across the prosperous agricultural and industrial
state of Gujarat, from Ahmedabad in the hinterland to Bhuj, in
the coastal marshlands.
SEMI-CREMATED
BODIES SMOULDER ON ROAD TO BHUJ
Along the
cracked roads leading to Bhuj, collapsed houses, buildings and
temples dotted the landscape.
Injured people
and families were sleeping in the open in the villages along the
road. Stunned survivors pushed handcarts carrying injured relatives,
desperately seeking medical help.
Many bodies
had been burned, but often not properly cremated. The remains
of several people were still smouldering.
Gujarat State
Minister for Transport and IT Bimal Shah said he estimated more
than 500 were dead in Ahmedabad alone, where rescue workers continued
to claw at the rubble. But in many places they reached the victims
too late.
Nearly 30
high school students died, trapped in a stairwell at their school
as they tried to escape.
Many of the
five million residents of the prosperous textile and gold trading
town expressed anger that recently constructed buildings had been
built illegally, flouting regulations meant to limit the risk
of collapse in this earthquake-prone zone.
Rescue operations
began quickly in bigger cities like Ahmedabad, but in the remote
towns near the epicentre of the quake many were still waiting
for help.
The quake
hit with terrifying intensity on Friday as many people were at
home preparing to celebrate Republic Day, the anniversary of India's
transition to a republic in 1950.
The Indian
army and air force swung into a massive rescue effort, flying
in satellite telecommunications equipment to restore Gujarat's
links with the rest of the country.
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.
Many people
had died of asphyxia or were trampled in stampedes, doctors said.
OFFERS
OF HELP FROM OVERSEAS
Offers of
help flowed in from countries around the world as well as from
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Pakistan
offered relief for India's quake victims and Pakistani military
ruler General Pervez Musharraf set aside differences with nuclear
rival India over the disputed state of Kashmir to send a message
of sympathy to India's Vajpayee.
"The
government and people of Pakistan share the grief of the bereaved
families," he said. At least eight people were killed and
many injured by the quake in Pakistan's southern province of Sindh.
It was the
world's second major quake of the year. On January 13, a quake
measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale killed at least 700 people
in El Salvador and left 10 percent of its population homeless.
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