Nightmare in the Mountains

By Tim McGirk / Northern Pakistan

The rescuers had searched the rubble for days, with little expectation of finding anyone alive. Even the mother of 5-year-old Zarabe Shah had given up hope, leaving the ruins of Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, a once boisterous river town of about 150,000, to grieve elsewhere for her lost daughter. But what happened next was proof that even in the most devastated settings, miracles can happen. As workers pounded a hole in a collapsed house last week, the tiny figure of Zarabe crawled out. Her shiny red dress and spiky hair were caked with dust, and she was scared and thirsty. But otherwise Zarabe was unhurt--a living, breathing testament to the human will to survive.

She was among the lucky ones. As military helicopters and aid convoys began delivering food, water, medicine and tents to those stranded in the Himalayas last week, the full scale of the disaster became more apparent. The 7.6-magnitude earthquake that hammered northern Pakistan and India on Oct. 8 flattened entire villages, burying scores of people whose bodies remain unrecovered. In Pakistan, officials expect the final toll to exceed 50,000 dead, with many thousands injured and more than 2 million people left homeless. In India, the quake killed more than 1,300 and left more than 100,000 without shelter. For the survivors, the devastation of the quake was followed by even more misery, as untold numbers in remote mountain villages went days without seeing any sign of relief. The delay in getting supplies to the disaster zone raised fears of untreated injuries, disease and malnutrition, or worse: the looming snow season could present the specter of masses of people freezing to death.

Most of the destruction took place in Kashmir, a stunningly beautiful land of rivers, lakes and valleys beset by decades of conflict and tragedy. India, which controls roughly two-thirds of the area, and Pakistan, the rest, have fought two wars over the disputed territory. Both governments said they had summoned all available resources to assist the victims, but neither country's response was adequate to the task. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf waited nearly 30 hours after the quake hit before requesting additional support from the U.S. in the form of eight military helicopters that could ferry aid to the quake region. In the Indian Kashmirian mountain village of Skee, residents received no help for five days, even though it overlooks a base for thousands of Indian troops. Army spokesman Colonel Hemant Juneja told TIME that helicopter crews were evacuating wounded soldiers and civilians alike on the basis of the severity of their injuries alone. But several days after the quake, Skee villagers said they had received no drops of food, water or medicine. All too often, say eyewitnesses in both countries, military troops took care of their own casualties before venturing out into the towns and villages.

In Balakot, Pakistan, a town of 20,000 people that was reduced to a muddy smear, it took the army three days to arrive, even though its base is only 20 miles away. When troops finally converged on a collapsed school building to help dig out some 200 students trapped inside, enraged parents hurled stones at the soldiers. As choppers touched down in wrecked mountain hamlets, survivors mobbed the crews and fought one another for blankets and biscuits. Some Pakistani officials reported that several times stranded earthquake victims clung to a chopper as it lifted off, nearly causing it to crash.

In many cases, people didn't wait for the army. Thousands of volunteers headed into the mountains, carrying shovels, pickaxes and iron rods to dig for survivors. Down in the main cities, well-wishers donated tents, blankets, food and even cloth for burial shrouds. Among the first responders were militant Islamic groups, who seized on the catastrophe to blame Musharraf's alliance with the U.S. in the war on terrorism for incurring Allah's wrath. In Chehla Bandi village, members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an outlawed group sympathetic to al-Qaeda, cooked food, helped bury the dead and shoveled through the debris to find the living. "They saved us when nobody came from the government," says a survivor, Ali Geelani, 28. "Musharraf has given us the earthquake; they have given us life. And if they ask me, I will go for jihad with them." Others weren't given a choice. A teenager known only as Bobby was pulled from the ruins by Lashkar-e-Taiba volunteers. When they discovered that his family had died, he was taken to the group's headquarters in Lahore. "He's an orphan now," explains a militant. "So he's ours."

Like last year's tsunami, the Himalayan disaster presented a political opportunity for the Bush Administration, which hopes that by providing assistance to a Muslim country in need like Pakistan, it can help improve its image in the Islamic world. Washington has promised $50 million in emergency aid, and already C-130 cargo planes are parachuting an airlift of blankets, plastic sheets, medical supplies and disaster-survival kits to victims. But U.S. officials say the military can't afford to make an open-ended commitment to the relief effort without hampering antiterrorism operations in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, relief groups trying to raise money for the victims say they are encountering donor fatigue--perhaps caused by the massive private responses to the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Jan Egeland, the U.N.'s top humanitarian-aid official, is calling for worldwide donations of some $272 million. "We are losing the race against the clock in the small villages," he says.

It is in those tiny outposts that the horror is still being uncovered. The quake struck as children were in their morning classes, in shabbily built schools that crumbled under the first shock waves, crushing thousands of boys and girls. Four days after the quake, a teacher named Said Rasool traveled down from his village to seek help in Balakot, his cream-colored trousers still stained with the blood of his dead students. He wandered from one cluster of soldiers to another, pleading that they help him try to dig out his students. But there was still too much work to be done in Balakot before the soldiers could follow the teacher up into the mountains. For Rasool, as for so many still awaiting relief, hope has already run out.

[This text accompanies a complex diagram. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

KASHMIR IN RUINS The deadly earthquake struck the heart of the rugged, war-torn area hotly contested by India and Pakistan. Now both countries are scrambling to get aid to remote villages

EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER Around 6.2 miles (10 km) below the surface

Locations of aftershocks

Balakot Hundreds of children die when their school collapses

Islamabad 40 residents die when a luxury building collapses

Muzaffarabad Around 12,000 people die in the regional capital, a city of 150,000 near the epicenter

THE GROWING CRISIS o Officials expect the final death toll to top 50,000 as rescuers reach more remote mountain villages o With winter only a few weeks away, relief workers are scrambling to find shelter for the estimated 2 million people made homeless o Pakistan's healthcare facilities are strained to the limit. Thousands of injured people are without shelter or treatment, and officials fear large outbreaks of disease, particularly measles o Many roads into the high mountains are wiped out, and heavy rain grounds some relief flights, further slowing efforts to reach survivors

WHAT LIES BENEATH The 7.6-magnitude earthquake was triggered by the same forces that created the Himalayas. The Indian plate of the Earth's crust is moving north at around 2 in. (5 cm) per year, driving against the Eurasian plate. Because of those movements, southern Asia is prone to devastating earthquakes. A list of the deadliest over the past decade:

[This article contains a table -- Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.] Date Location Magnitude Death toll Dec. 26, 2004 Indonesia 9 283, 106 The undersea earthquake triggered a massive tsunami that ravaged coastlines from Indonesia to Somalia Oct. 8, 2005 Pakistan/India 7.6 50, 000 (proj.) Dec. 26, 2003 Iran 6.6 26, 200 Jan. 26, 2001 India 7.7 20, 023 Aug. 17, 1999 Turkey 7.6 17, 118 Jan. 16, 1995 Japan 6.9 5, 502

DISPUTED REGION Kashmir is the site of the world's largest and most militarized territorial dispute, with India, Pakistan and China all staking claims to parts of the territory. The rugged region is bisected by the Line of Control that separates Indian and Pakistani forces. The two countries have fought two wars over the area, but a cease-fire has been in place since 2003.

Rupture zone When plates moving past each other get stuck, pressure builds until it's eventually released in an earthquake. The greater the pressure, the bigger the quake

With reporting by Ghulam Hasnain / Balakot, Alex Perry / Skee, Elaine Shannon / Washington