Travel  |  Business World  |  Women's World  |  Entertainment

Change Your Life!

First of American C-17 cargo planes lands in quake-hit Indian state

News
Sports
Chat
Travel
Dhaka Today
Yellow Pages
Higher Education
Ask a Doctor
Weather
Currency Rate
Horoscope
E-Cards
B2K Poll
Comment on the Site
B2K Club

February 4, 2001 

AHMEDABAD, FEB 4 (AP) - U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo planes loaded with aid began arriving in India's devastated quake-zone Saturday as relief workers race to distribute food, medicine and supplies among hundreds of thousands of survivors before disease spreads.

The demolition of damaged buildings gathered pace. Soldiers piled clothes, broken furniture and children's toys in front of ruined buildings and survivors made last-minute forays into the rubble to scavenge possessions before crews moved into to knock down the remains of their homes.

The first of seven American C-17s touched down just before 8 a.m. Saturday (0230 GMT) in Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat state, carrying personnel. A bottleneck in the relief effort has been a lack of people to unload vital aid off cargo planes.

A second plane with equipment such as forklifts arrived in the afternoon.

"This is just one part of the U.S relief effort and we are very pleased to help in this time of need," said Maj. Jeffrey Wright, assistant Army attache at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.

Wright dismissed complaints that the recovery effort has been disorganized, saying: "Given the size of the calamity, there are a lot of people doing a lot of good work."

More U.S. planes were headed in. The remaining five flights expected on Saturday were loaded with aid, including sleeping blankets, tents and other supplies for the survivors of the 7.7-magnitude Jan. 26 earthquake.

A six-person military assessment team was sent from U.S. Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii to assist the U.S. Embassy in evaluating potential additional Pentagon assistance to the relief effort. An American 747 cargo plane, carrying an additional dlrs 4 million in aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development will land on Monday, probably in New Delhi.

Confusion continued over the actual death toll. Late Friday, a top state official in Gujarat put the number of bodies so far recovered at 15,088, but the Gujarat state control room on Saturday morning put the toll at 11,341. The number of injured was 62,729.

Further earthquake damage remained a threat. Dozens of strong aftershocks have jolted the region, and a 5-magnitude quake hit just north of the damaged town of Bhachau Saturday morning. People panicked and ran out of their homes, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Help is badly needed. Officials estimate the final death toll could reach 35,000. A major humanitarian crisis was brewing for the survivors, which include an estimated 600,000 homeless, who have been left without food, clothing or sanitation.

Medical care is also a major need. Hospitals on land were destroyed by the quake, their staffs killed. International aid groups have set up tent hospitals in the quake region, including the largest field hospital the Red Cross has ever run. The threat of disease spread by decaying bodies still trapped under rubble was rising.

In Ahmedabad, soldiers were piling belongings taken from the ruins of the Shikhar Apartments - where about 100 people were killed - in a playground beside the complex for survivors to look through.

Poolan Verma, 34, prepared to enter the precarious shell of her ruined first-floor apartment to see what she could find.

"We are trying to save what we can," she said, surrounded by piles of school bags, broken chairs and pictures of gods and goddesses. "We are going inside - it's dangerous, but we are going in."

With the immediate shock of the quake fading, suspicion that shoddy construction methods contributed to the death toll was building. In Ahmedabad, criminal complaints have been filed against nine leading construction companies.

"We have been cheated," said Satishbhai Nihalthand Shah, whose nephew died in the quake. "The structure of the buildings is very weak. If poor quality construction material was not used, the loss of lives could have been avoided."

In Bhuj, one of the worst hit cities, officials were waiting for aid being flown into Ahmedabad to be trucked to the needy.

Bill Berger, the leader of the USAID team, said in Bhuj that Indian authorities and international development groups already on the ground had set up a distribution network, so that the American effort was aimed mainly at supplying them with goods.

A heavy U.S. personnel presence, he said, runs the risk of getting in the way - and further straining food and sanitation systems.

"We are trying to keep a small footprint so we don't become part of the problem, but part of the solution," he said. "We don't need more people, we need small focused self-sufficient teams, which we already have on the ground."