Rain halts some aid flights to quake victims

MUZAFFARAB, Pakistan -- Heavy rain and hail forced the cancellation of some relief flights to earthquake-stricken regions Tuesday and survivors scuffled over the badly needed food. Officials estimated that the death toll would surpass 35,000.\nEmergency workers in the northern town of Balakot pulled a teenage boy from the rubble, 78 hours after Saturday's quake.\n"He's alive!" rescuers shouted as people gave food and water to the boy and kissed him on the head.\nTwo survivors, a 55-year-old woman and her 75-year-old mother, also were pulled from the rubble of a 10-story apartment building in Islamabad, 80 hours after they were buried. They did not appear to have suffered serious injuries.\nA French search team on Monday rescued at least five children buried in a collapsed school in the northern town of Balakot, said Eric Supara, an official at the French Embassy in Islamabad.\nBob McKerrow, coordinator of relief efforts for the International Federation of the Red Cross, told CNN that "you can still keep some hope" for survivors trapped for five to seven days, although he cautioned that the cold and wet weather would also become a factor.\nIn Indian-controlled Kashmir, rescue workers Tuesday found the bodies of 60 road workers in a bus that was buried in a landslide during the quake, the army said. The bodies were cremated on funeral pyres beside the highway they were working on, officials said.\nEarlier in the day, U.S. military helicopters, diverted from neighboring Afghanistan, helped ferry wounded from the wrecked city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-ruled Kashmir. International rescue teams joined the search for finding survivors. Teams of Britons, Germans and Turks used high-tech cameras to scan under piles of concrete, steel and wood.\nThousands of civilian volunteers walked north toward quake-hit towns.\nThe worst-hit region was Kashmir, a divided Himalayan territory of about 10 million people claimed by both India and Pakistan. Islamic rebels opposed to Indian rule of its part of the largely Muslim region have fought a 15-year insurgency that has claimed more than 66,000 lives. India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir.\nBad weather compounded the misery in the region, with heavy rain and hail forcing some helicopters loaded with food and medicine to cancel or delay their flights.\nThat official toll in Pakistan remained at around 20,000 people, but a senior army official close to the rescue operations said government officials were estimating that between 35,000 and 40,000 died. The official asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to disclose the estimate to journalists.\nIndian army spokesman J.S. Juneja said his country's death toll had risen to 1,460 with the discovery of the road workers buried in the landslide.\nThe U.S. Agency for International Development reported 33,180 dead in Pakistan, 865 dead in India and four dead in Afghanistan. citing its own, preliminary statistics.\nThe U.N. World Food Program said the first deliveries of food for 240,000 people will reach victims late Tuesday. Simon Pluess, a spokesman for the agency, said the WFP was prepared to feed 1 million people for a month.\nU.N. officials also warned of a possible measles epidemic and the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhea, as the water and sanitation system is heavily damaged.\n"Measles could potentially become a serious problem," said Fadela Chaib, spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. Measles is endemic in the region and just 60 percent of children, for whom the disease is often deadly, are protected. At least 90 percent coverage is needed to prevent an epidemic, the WHO said.\nAbout 10 trucks brought by Pakistani charities and volunteers rumbled into Muzaffarabad, where efforts by relief workers to distribute aid turned chaotic as residents scrambled for handouts of cooking oil, sugar, rice, blankets and tents.\nIt was the first major influx of aid since the monster 7.6-magnitude quake struck, destroying most homes and all government buildings in the city, and leaving its 600,000 people without power or water. Most have spent three cold nights without shelter.