Death Toll from Earthquake at 79,000
 

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Two strong aftershocks from South Asia's deadly earthquake shook the devastated region Wednesday, unleashing landslides and setting off another wave of panic among survivors of the Oct. 8 disaster. A new tally from regional officials pushed the death toll to 79,000.

The new toll would make the quake one of the deadliest in modern times.

Despite brisk sorties of helicopters delivering aid to quake victims, an estimated half-million survivors, many of them in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, have yet to receive any help since the monster 7.6-magnitude quake leveled entire villages. Thousands need urgent medical care.

The situation is the most dire in the estimated 1,000 settlements outside the main cities and towns, said regional U.N. disaster coordinator Rob Holden.

"Many people out there, we are not going to get to in time," Holden said. "Some people who have injuries don't have a chance of survival."

On Wednesday, Asif Iqbal Daudzai, information minister for Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, said 37,958 people died in the province and at least 23,172 were injured, the vast majority of them in Mansehra district. He said the figures were based on reports from local government and hospital officials, and that the toll was likely to rise.

The prime minister of neighboring Pakistani-held Kashmir, Sikander Hayat Khan, said at least 40,000 people died in that region. India has reported 1,360 deaths in the part of Kashmir that it controls.

Those tallies would push the death toll to 79,318 from the quake.

A senior Pakistani army official estimated that 75,000 to 80,000 people died. He said his estimate was based on an assessment from the ground and air of the destruction, and casualties counted so far across the quake zone. The official did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to comment on the death toll.

Pakistan's central government has said the death toll from North West Frontier Province and Pakistani-held Kashmir was a total of 42,000, and expected to rise. The central count has lagged behind the local count since the early days of the disaster.

The disaster is surpassed only by the 1976 quake in Tangshan, China, that killed about 240,000 people and one in 1923 in Japan that killed about 140,000.

Last year's deadly quake and tsunami across the Indian Ocean region killed more than 174,000 and left another 106,000 missing.

Wednesday's 5.8-magnitude aftershock struck 80 miles north of Islamabad, near the epicenter of the main quake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was followed by another in the same area about 45 minutes later that registered 5.6.

The first aftershock caused a landslide in Balakot, one of the cities hardest hit by the initial quake. Debris covered the road to nearby Mansehra, but it was quickly cleared, said Pakistani Army Lt. Col. Saeed Iqbal, who is in charge of relief efforts in the area.

A landslide also blocked a road out of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, but it was expected to be cleared quickly.

Iqbal said the aftershock was "very heavy" and that he saw dust rising from the Kaghan Valley north of Balakot, possibly indicating an additional landslide.

In Indian-held Kashmir, the new tremors startled thousands of people in relief camps, including those in the worst-hit Uri and Tangdar districts close to the boundary with Pakistan-held territory. Police said there were no reports of landslides or damage to buildings.

Hundreds of aftershocks have struck the region since the Oct. 8 quake.

"They're not over," said Waverly Person, a seismologist at the U.S. quake center. "For a shallow-depth earthquake like this they go on, sometimes for a year."

In Balakot, villagers scavenged for food, clothes or building material.

"We need help," said resident Basim Qassir. "There's been deliveries, but it's just not enough."

Nearly two weeks after the quake, NATO has yet to deploy significant forces in the disaster area, and its commanders acknowledged difficulties Wednesday in mustering the high-altitude helicopters needed to get aid into the mountainous regions.

"Helicopters, as you know, have been a real problem for all of us to generate," U.S. Gen. James L. Jones, NATO's supreme commander in Europe, told reporters at his southern Belgian headquarters.

U.S. Vice Adm. John Stufflebeem said through a video link from his base in Lisbon, Portugal, that Pakistan currently has a greater need for light helicopters "and at the moment, we have very few of those." Alliance officials declined to say how many helicopters they were seeking.

On a tour of Balakot, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said he expected reconstruction of the area to take years, and that the government would try to get prefabricated homes for victims.

In Beijing, the U.N.'s top relief coordinator on Wednesday said the international community was not doing enough to help and should step up relief efforts.

Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, urged China to help because it borders the hard-hit area of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and has a stockpile of winterized tents.

Egeland asked China for 20,000 tents, 10 helicopters and as much cash as possible — hinting at $20 million. Beijing, a close ally of Pakistan, has already pledged $6.2 million directly to Islamabad and sent tents, blankets, water purifying tablets, rescue equipment and a search team.

India was mulling Pakistan's proposal to help quake victims in Kashmir by allowing residents to cross the frontier that divides the disputed territory between them, the latest sign of cooperation between the nuclear-armed rivals since this month's disaster.

India, which has sent quake relief supplies to Pakistan, hailed the plan but said it was awaiting details.

Also Wednesday, residents of Indian-controlled Kashmir made the first phone calls to the Pakistani side of the Himalayan territory in 15 years, trying to learn the fate of loved ones since the quake hit, police said.

New Delhi cut communications between its Jammu-Kashmir state and all of Pakistan in 1990 to try to stymie an Islamic insurgency there that it charged was being run from Pakistan, an allegation Islamabad denies. Pakistanis can, however, still make direct calls to Indian Kashmir.

At least 54,000 people died in the disaster, most of them in the Pakistani-held part of divided Kashmir. The toll includes 1,361 deaths reported by India on its side of the militarized boundary separating the Himalayan region.

(I didnt think I'd ever see a death toll that would top the tsunami) :distress:

The Deadliest Earthquake

On December 26, 2004, a 9.0 earthquake hit Sumatra and estimates say that over 110,000 people have been killed. Though the earthquake was powerful (it's tied for fourth largest since 1900) and the devastation is immense, it is not the deadliest earthquake. In 1976, a 7.8 earthquake hit the city of Tangshan in China and killed approximately 240,000 people.

http://history1900s.about.com/b/a/135403.htm

you know how you have awful thoughts and you immediately think 'oh my god how could I have thought that'? or am I the only one?

anyway, I have thought before that with all of these natural disasters that kill so many innocent people if it is nature's way of controlling the population or for some other reason. now isn't that a horrible thing to think and not very logical.

I feel so bad for those people who have no warning and such destruction. My heart goes out to them. How do you cope with the loss of 111,000 people...I mean, wow...sad sad.

The death tallies for Sumatra 2004 vary pretty widely. They range from 225,000 (National Geophysical Data Center) to upwards of 283,106 (USGS Earthquake Hazards Program page). That's not counting the "missing," many of whose bodies probably washed out to sea & never washed back in again. Tragic as the Pakistan quake toll is, it seems to be significantly less than Indonesia. It's virtually impossible to get minutely accurate data from events of such huge proportions in the Third World, whose inhabitants don't all walk around with various types of government ID cards.

Seeing those people digging through rubble with their bare hands to remove the corpses of their little children was sobering and quite devastating. There's really nothing anyone can say about this that wouldn't come across as cliched or silly at this point.

I can't even comprehend how awful it must be for them to go through that. :distress: That number is also incomprehensible.

Interesting, I hadnt heard those numbers.
And, the death toll in Pakistan isnt done yet. there are still very large aftershocks, and I suspect, many more bodies to count. Apparently I may be wrong about this event being more devastating than Sumatra, but I'll wait and see what the end totals are...

in any event, its amazingly deadly considering the fact that those areas are mountainous and I didnt realize there were that many people in the region.

What with Wilma coming up hard after Katrina and Rita, how the Ovoid Office can say there's no global warming is beyond me....There's plenty of evidence in our times that we need to make some drastic changes (off topic I know, sorry)

My Mom said she heard Bush said he believed global warming is happening but that scientists do not agree on its causes. In other words he can't do anything about it because he doesn't know what causes it which is BS.

While global warming certainly is happening, the trend of hurricanes since they have been recorded is not fully supportive of this frequency of the storms this season being caused by this warming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

Also http://zfacts.com/p/49.html

Note - I am not saying GW is not effecting it. I am just saying the trends are not dispositive of it being the sole cause or really a significant cause.

Jason, actually the link from your own article DOES say that global warming is causing the hurricanes! take a look at this:
http://zfacts.com/p/113.html

and this is particularly telling:
and again:
EDIT: From where I sit, it looks like the only thing that COULD be causing it, even if you take into account the natural fluctuation of the Ocean temps, apparently the Ocean is warming up to a larger/faster extent (anyone remember the huge glaciers that broke off Antarctica that floated toward New Zealand?)which would account for the more frequent, stronger storms.....

It concludes (emphaisis supplied) :

In spite of the natural ocean cycle and global warming, the dramatic increases in U.S. hurricane damage is mainly due to the increases in coastal populations since the 1940's. Because hurricanes are so unpredictable, no specific cost can be attributed to global warming. :shrug:

I think global warming is having a detrimental effect, but the natural cycle of hurricanes is occuring on top of that.

But you left out the very next sentence:

The Best Current Estimate: Damage from Atlantic hurricanes, conservatively estimated, is up more than 45% due to global warming. Based on improvements to MIT data first published in July. See new estimate of destructive power-vs.-warming curve.
http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/Stoft...al_warming.gif\

THIS is from yet another link in your original page:
If global warming has warmed the Atlantic just 0.5° C, there is a 95% chance that it has increased average annual hurricane destructiveness by more than 45% (Half a degree C is less than 1 degree Farenheit.)


http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/zFact...Hurricanes.gif

Global Situation: The percentage of category 4 and 5 hurricanes is up in all six hurricane basins of which the North Atlantic has only a 15% share. Graph of data from September Science article. [The flatter red line is Atlantic hurricanes.] Only zFacts runs the stats for you on this "coincidence."
Here is the link to the other graph:
http://zfacts.com/p/125.html

and the link within your own page says that the debunkers are wrong:shrug:

I think the scientists have the data but no one has the cojones to stand up and say GOOD GAWD PEOPLE THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING!
So stop driving your SUV's and for CRIPES SAKE do the world a FAVOR and get that MONKEY BOY OUT OF OFFICE!!! Make sure your NEXT President is environmentally SAVVY hmmmmm?????????????????



by the way, I want to point out that you are comparing apples to oranges with this:
That statement doesnt address the CAUSE of hurricanes, it just talks about the EFFECT. I am talking about the CAUSE.

^^^^

without global warming Katrina would not have happened. That is assinine and completely ignores the facts and history as Cat. 5 storms have happened before Katrina :laugh:

But anbd to the point, you need to quote the whole paragraph, which fails to support that global warming was the sole cause of a cat. 5 storm:

In spite of the natural ocean cycle and global warming, the dramatic increases in U.S. hurricane damage is mainly due to the increases in coastal populations since the 1940's. Because hurricanes are so unpredictable, no specific cost can be attributed to global warming. This means it is just as wrong to say there has been no cost as to say it was 20% or 40% of hurricane damage in recent years. Without global warming, Katrina almost certainly would not have happened, but something else would have, and it might have been worse, ... or better. We just don't know.

Without global warming I would have nothing to pick on the "tree huggers" about.

May I also point out that Clinton was not much better on the environment and Kerry would have been essentially the same as W. For example, while Clinton did relatively tiny things here and there, I did not see Clinton mandating cars run on anything other than oil, etc. So, do not lay all that on W's feet when it rightly belongs on the feet of almost every politician in Wash. and at the state and local levels, all of which refuse to make any significant strides away from fossil fuels, which is what it will take.