|
Anananova
The
Indian earthquake disaster could have killed up to 30,000
people in just one city and there are about 125,000 people
unaccounted for throughout the region, officials said tonight.
More
than 6,000 people have been confirmed dead and the number
injured stands at 14,500, but death and injury figures are
likely to rise much higher.
K N
Mahure, a fire brigade commander in charge of rescue efforts
in Bhuj - the hardest hit area in the western state of Gujarat
- says: "There may be 20,000 to 30,000 dead in Bhuj
alone."
He says
he is basing his estimate on the number of people reported
missing and the number found dead after three days of searching.
"But we are finding people alive," he adds.
Gujarat
Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel says about 125,000 people
were "not accounted for" . He says many of them
could be buried under the rubble, while others may have
left the state.
Haren
Pandya, Gujarat's home minister, says 6,072 people have
been confirmed to have died in Friday's quake and gives
a more cautious prediction of "at least 10,000 dead",
adding that more than 14,500 people have been injured.
As frantic
rescue efforts continued today, soldiers digging through
the ruins of crushed buildings pursued the faint voices
of survivors buried alive beneath tonnes of rubble.
A three-year-old
girl was pulled alive from rubble in Anjar, 30 miles south-east
of Bhuj, where 400 children were buried under toppling buildings
as they marched in a holiday parade. A soldier who helped
rescue her said: "She was chanting some Arabic verses.
She was totally unscathed."
Nearby,
rescuers spent five hours chipping at stones until they
freed a 50-year-old man known only as Maganbhai. He was
given sips of water as the workers pounded away at the rubble
trapping his legs until they freed him.
In Bhuj,
air force troops and police followed the sounds of a baby's
cry until they made eye contact with her and her mother.
Hours later, 18-month-old Namrata was pulled out alive and
rushed to an air force hospital, but her mother Naina Badrasen
Aur died before rescuers could reach her.
|
