By
The Associated Press
BHUJ, India - Soldiers digging through the ruins of crushed buildings yesterday pursued the faint voices of survivors of India's devastating earthquake, but the official death toll of more than 6,000 was expected to climb by several thousand - or several times.
A 3-year-old girl was unearthed from the rubble in Anjar, 30 miles southeast of Bhuj, where 400 children were buried under toppling buildings as they marched in a holiday parade.
"She was chanting some Arabic verses," said a soldier who participated in the toddler's rescue. "She was totally unscathed," he said, declining to give his name.
Thousands of others were not so lucky.
Home Minister Haren Pandya of the western state of Gujarat said 6,072 people were confirmed killed in Friday's quake. The toll was likely to go up to at least 10,000, he said. More than 14,500 have been injured, the national government said.
"There are many bodies buried inside, and there are many places with which we have no communications," he said.
Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, the state's top official, would say only the toll would reach "five figures. Five figures can be anything -10,000, 20,000."
Patel, speaking at a news conference, said some 125,000 people were "not accounted for." Many could be buried under the rubble, but crowds have taken to the roads since the quake, afraid to stay in Gujarat, and that exodus has added to the confusion as officials try to count the missing.
K.N. Mahure, a fire brigade commander in charge of rescue efforts in Bhuj, the hardest-hit area in Gujarat, put the possible toll even higher.
"There may be 20,000 to 30,000 dead in Bhuj alone," Mahure said, adding he was basing his estimate on the number reported missing and the number found dead after three days of searching. Bhuj, a desert town of 150,000 before the quake, was just miles from the epicenter.
"But we are finding people alive," Mahure said.
Near where the 3-year-old was recovered, rescuers spent five hours chipping at stones until they freed a 50-year-old man known only as Maganbhai. In shock, he was given sips of water as the workers pounded away at the rubble trapping his legs until they freed him.
In Bhuj, air force troops and police followed the sounds of a baby's cry until they made eye contact with her and her mother. Hours later, 18-month-old Namrata was pulled out alive and rushed to an air force hospital, her pulse weak. Her mother, Naina Badrasen Aur, died before rescuers could reach her.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was to tour quake sites Monday, appealed for Indians to contribute, "no matter how small the amount," to help earthquake victims. He said federal emergency funds would not be enough, and noted ordinary Indians had helped the government meet the challenge of previous natural disasters.
At the Kumbh Mela, a giant Hindu festival winding down in northern India, a religious leader said philanthropists offering free food to worshippers had been asked to shut down the tent kitchens and donate remaining food to quake victims.
Indian Agriculture Minister Bhaskar Barua reiterated at a news conference yesterday that it was the policy of his government, which stresses Indian self-sufficiency, not to ask for foreign aid. But he said India was thankful for the foreign help it had been offered, which included money and expert search and rescue help.
Another magnitude-six tremor shook the area yesterday morning. It was the largest aftershock yet, but no new damage was reported. The quake was centered 12 miles from the epicenter of Friday's 7.9 temblor. Since Friday, more than 275 aftershocks have been reported, 20 of them above magnitude five.
In a newly developed portion of Bhuj, lime and chlorine disinfectants mixed with the smell of dead bodies. People moved possessions from their homes and set up makeshift camps in two open areas, using bed sheets as tents.
"This is death and destruction," said a bearded old Muslim man sitting on a string cot in Bhuj, the worst affected town. He refused to talk about his family and wouldn't give his name. "I am just an unfortunate Indian. That is enough."
At least three separate rescue operations were launched in Bhuj, in places where residents reported hearing sounds of people. One of the sites was the Vaibhav Lakshmi apartment complex, a five-story building that completely collapsed in a 15-foot-high pile of debris.
Soldiers among the 5,000 Indian troops deployed in Gujarat rescued two men and a girl Saturday after digging through the fallen masonry of their homes in Bhuj.
Barua said the International Committee of the Red Cross had offered thousands of blankets, the Swiss government had sent sniffer dogs, and assistance was also being accepted from the United States, Russia, Germany and Turkey. Norway and China had offered monetary aid, and Taiwan was prepared to send rescue workers.
Japan offered to send 35 rescuers, but they were being held up by bureaucratic delays in India, Shusaki Hirashima, a Foreign Ministry official, said in Tokyo. Japan pledged nearly $1 million in cash and supplies.
Yesterday, relief planes were landing every 10 minutes at Bhuj airport, where the terminal had been flattened but the runway survived.
State carrier Air India announced yesterday it would waive cargo charges for relief material from anywhere in the world destined for the quake site. Jet Airways, a private Indian carrier, also was transporting relief supplies free of charge.
More than half the houses in Bhuj, a city of 150,000 people, were reduced to rubble, and the rest were damaged. In the congested old part of the city, dogs, pigs and cows foraged for food in streets made narrower by mounds of rubble.
Among the dead were 50 teachers and 400 children parading through the narrow old city streets of Anjar during Republic Day holiday celebrations. They were killed almost instantly when the earthquake knocked buildings down onto them from either side, said Bangaru Laxman, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But Patel, the chief minister, said eight children survived.
The quake was the most powerful to strike India since Aug. 15, 1950, when an 8.5-magnitude temblor killed 1,538 people in northeastern Assam state.
