Pakistan quake in the words of the survivors

Survivors recount the horror of tremors that have smashed villages and claimed at least 30,000 lives:

'When I reached my village, there was nothing left'

In Mansehra, about 150km northwest of the Pakistani capital, a shop owner named Haji Fazal Ilahi stood vigil over the body of his 14-year-old daughter, which lay under a sheet on a hospital mattress.

He said his wife, another daughter and a brother also died when the family's house fell.

"I could see rocks and homes tumbling down the mountains," said Ilahi, who was driving to his village of Garlat when the quake struck.

"When I reached my village, there was nothing left of my home."

Police chief Riffat Pashar said 350 children had been killed in a school in Mansehra district and 50 killed in another school in the same district. Dozens of children were feared killed in other schools.

Student escapes falling roof but family killed at home

Uzair Mohammed Qureshi, a 17-year-old student, was reading chemistry when his school began to shake. Seconds later, the roof caved in.

"For minutes I thought I had died," he said. "But after gaining consciousness, I looked around and saw a friend lying near me."

The teenager's ordeal was not over. He rushed home, but found a pile of rubble. His parents and grandmother were dead.

"Some people helped me pull out the bodies of my mother and grandmother, but my father's body is still trapped," he said. "I wish I had died and my father had survived."

Patients outside as hospital too unsafe to be used

In Abbotabad, north of Islamabad, dozens of quake injured and other patients, some hooked up to intravenous drips, lay on the lawn of the hospital after officials warned of aftershocks.

"We feel it is unsafe to keep patients inside. Our doctors and paramedical staff are scared to go in. The building has already developed cracks," said Amir Shah, a senior doctor at the hospital.

Panic grips residents of Indian capital

In New Delhi, which felt the aftershock, panicked people ran from their homes and offices, many fleeing in terror as local television stations prematurely predicted catastrophe.

Across northern India the tremors continued for hours.

"While parts of India have also suffered from this unexpected natural disaster, we are prepared to extend any assistance with rescue and relief," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a message Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf.

Destruction stretch across border into India

On the Indian side of Kashmir, police said the earthquake had killed at least 340 people and injured hundreds more.

About 2700 buildings were said to have collapsed. Half the deaths were in Uri, the last town on a highway connecting the two sides of the violence-scarred region.
Officials said more than 70 per cent of the houses in the Uri region had been flattened or ruined. Many of the homes were mounds of shattered brick and stone.

"Last night, every one of us had a house and a family. Now most of us are homeless, and many have no dear ones left," said Abdul Aziz, a Government employee.

10 storey apartment buildings reduced to rubble

At a collapsed residential building in Islamabad, 10 storeys were reduced to a pile of rubble four storeys high. Military personnel rushed to the scene from nearby naval and air bases to aid the rescue effort.

Police and civilians pulled rubble away with their hands while local businesses donated diggers and cranes. Rescuers pulled out at least 20 injured people.

"It was like hell," said Nauman Ali, who lived in a top-floor apartment. "It was terrible."

A man named Rehmatullah, who lived nearby, said: "I rushed down, and for some time you could not see anything because of the dust. Then we began to look for people in the rubble. We pulled out one man by cutting off his legs."

City 'flattened', part of Kashmir cut off by landslides

Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, was especially badly hit, and cut off by landslides from the rest of the country. There were reports of two schools, a hospital, and as yet countless homes reduced to rubble. One eyewitness said that "the whole city has been flattened".

Scores trapped in Islamabad apartment blocks

In Islamabad, scores of people were feared killed or trapped in two 12-storey apartment blocks.

Residents struggled to shift heavy concrete with bare hands.

A resident of one block, Sabahat Ahmed, said: "By the time the second tremor hit, the building had already started to collapse ... I heard and saw people in a state of panic, and many were stuck under the building."

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