Villager: Quake like 'Judgment Day'
Regional hospitals overwhelmed; roads blocked

Saturday, October 8, 2005; Posted: 10:58 p.m. EDT (02:58 GMT)

Doctors and paramedics treat the injured in Mansehra, Pakistan, on
Saturday.

Villager: Quake like 'Judgment Day'
Regional hospitals overwhelmed; roads blocked

Saturday, October 8, 2005; Posted: 10:58 p.m. EDT (02:58 GMT)

Doctors and paramedics treat the injured in Mansehra, Pakistan, on
Saturday.

Saturday's deadly earthquake shook three capital cities (2:35)

MANSEHRA, Pakistan (Reuters) -- When the earthquake struck, Pakistani
villager Fazal Elahi thought it was the end of the world. For his
family, it was.

Grieving quietly next to the body of his 14-year-old daughter, Elahi
recounted how his wife and brother had died when their house collapsed
and how he had taken his fatally injured daughter to Mansehra Hospital
in North-West Frontier province.

"When the earthquake came it was like Judgment Day," Elahi said,
recalling the horror of houses collapsing all around him. (Watch
another witness account - :16)

To get to the hospital some 46 km (29 miles) away, Elahi passed through
Balakot, a town of around 20,000 people, where the scale of the
devastation became even more apparent.

"Houses in Balakot city were flattened," he said.

The white-bearded old man finally reached the hospital, but his
daughter died in his arms as they went through the gates.

A villager from Hillkot, some 60 km (37 miles) from Mansehra, had a
similar story -- only his daughter was alive.

"All houses in my village have collapsed and about 500 people are still
buried under the debris," said Luqman after carrying his child into the
hospital.

His wife was killed.

Inside the hospital, medical staff were overwhelmed. Just eight
doctors, helped by a similar number of nurses, struggled to cope with
around 800 people crammed into wards, corridors and laid out in the
courtyard.

Mansehra's residents helped them treat victims streaming in from the
outlying areas. So far, 15 people had died in the hospital, but the
corridors were full of talk of tragedies elsewhere in this remote part
of North-West Frontier province.

People spoke of hundreds of children caught by the quake as they began
school in Mansehra and Balakot.

"The roads have been blocked since morning, but we have received up to
900 people," said Dr. Siddiq Ur-Rehman, as more cars carrying victims
pulled up in the driving rain outside the hospital.

He said emergency services hadn't been able to reach the villages and
feared for the worst. "I fear that the casualties from nearby areas
will be very high."

Officials in North West Frontier said the death toll already had risen
well past 1,000, while those in Pakistan's part of the disputed region
of Kashmir said they believed their area had been hit even harder.
(Details)