Nightmare in the Mountains

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.