Rescue Efforts Intensified In India's Quake-hit Sate

With precious hours tacking away three days after the strong earthquake which shook India's northwest state of Gujarat last Friday, rescue teams intensified their efforts to locate survivors from under mountains of debris in Kutch district, the worst hit area of the state.

About 660 doctors and 780 para-medical personnel have reached the district with 200 ambulances to provide succor to the injured survivors, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI) on Monday.

With a total of 6,300 bodies had so far been retrieved from the rubble of flattened houses in the district, the death toll in the devastating tremor was expected to go beyond 20,000.

Reports reaching here said that in many cases relatives were recovering the bodies and arranging their cremation or burial on their own without information to authorities.

PTI said that 20,000 of the injured had already been operated while a number of injured people had also been shifted to hospitals in nearby cities and towns.

Two navy ships stationed at Kandla port in the Rann of Kutch had been converted into hospitals while four other ships had arrived there with relief supplies and the fifth one was on its way, PTI said.

Although three days have passed since the killer earthquake struck Gujarat with its epicenter near Bhuj, about 1,000 kilometers southwest of here, panic-stricken people from the region continued to migrate to safer areas in view of forecast of further tremors.

Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel asked the people on Sunday to be on alert following forecasts that more powerful tremors could be experienced in the next 48 hours.

Those who have not moved out prefer to stay in the open or in makeshift shelters fearing further damage in their dwellings in aftershocks.

Foreign relief teams have started operations in Bhuj, headquarters of the Kutch district where over 16,000 people were reportedly killed in the quake, the worst in the last 50 years since the founding of the Indian Republic.

Expert teams with equipment from the United States, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey arrived and been engaged in rescue operation on Sunday in the earthquake affected areas in the state and other teams from Britain, Russia and Turkey had arrived and German and French teams were on their way to the area.

Indian newspapers said on Monday that the death toll in earthquake might increase to as many as 50,000 with thousands of people were still trapped under debris.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is scheduled to arrive at Bhuj Monday to inspect the situation and the central government will review the rescue operations after his return to New Delhi.

PTI reported on Sunday that some 260 after-shocks, following the earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale, had been recorded by Seismology Department of the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Mumbai, 1,407 kilometers southwest of here, of which 20 were above magnitude of five on the Richter scale.






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