By
The Associated Press
BHUJ, India - Rescue workers digging through the rubble of a collapsed building yesterday uncovered a dead woman and, in her lap, an 8-month-old child, covered in her blood but kept alive by the shelter of her body through three cold nights.
It was one of the increasingly rare dramatic rescues in this devastated town, where funeral pyres have been burning around the clock in the wake of Friday's earthquake. So far, 6,287 people are known dead, and officials said yesterday that damages reached $5.5 billion.
"It was just miraculous," said R.K. Thakur, a Border Security Forces assistant commandant, who was among the rescue workers who found the baby, Murtza Ali, under a collapsed building in the Bhuj's Kansara Market.
His team was trying to recover the body of a woman from the rubble when they realized the blood-covered baby in her lap was alive.
"We saw the baby in the mother's lap, we saw some movement from the baby. I took the baby in my hand, and I found it was alive," Thakur said.
The baby boy was rushed to a medical center, where doctors later said he was conscious and smiling. Doctors said it was the warmth of the mother's body and the protection it offered that helped the baby survive during nights when temperatures dropped to 44 degrees.
In Bhachau, a town east of Bhuj, a 7-month-old girl was rescued from the rubble of her home and hours later was being passed around the arms of her joyous mother and relatives.
But such points of hope are becoming rare.
"Hope of finding survivors is dwindling hour by hour, but as long as there is hope, we won't give up," said Joachim Ahrens, spokesman for a Swiss government agency responsible for a rescue team in Bhuj. "The hopes are dwindling but they are not yet dead."
By official count, Friday's 7.9-magnitude quake had killed 6,287 people in the industrial state of Gujarat in western India. The state's chief minister, Keshubhai Patel, said the toll may rise as high as 20,000.
Tremors lasting up to 30 seconds continued to shake India yesterday, panicking residents but causing no damage beyond minor cracks in buildings. A 4.3- magnitude quake struck in the morning near Bangalore, a city 850 miles southeast of Friday's epicenter.
In the first estimate of the damage, the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry put losses at $5.5 billion, in addition to a daily production loss of $111 million, Secretary General Amit Mitra said.
Clearly overwhelmed, the government said Sunday it would ask for a $1.5 billion loan from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for reconstruction.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, touring the devastation in Gujarat state yesterday, announced a federal relief grant of $108 million and an additional $3 million from the Prime Minister's Relief Fund.
He added that he was creating a national disaster agency to ensure immediate response to emergencies. ''The country is not ready to face such disasters.''
Yesterday survivors complained that confusion and a lack of equipment was hampering search efforts. Rescuers lacked cranes, bulldozers and generators for lights. Soldiers were beginning searches at first light and stopping when the sun set.
"They work from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. only. This is emergency duty. They should work round the clock," said Pradeep Sheth, 46, who was rescued from under the rubble after seven hours.
Sheth, whose wife, mother and two daughters were still trapped in the debris, wondered how soldiers would clear the rubble. "There are live people trapped inside. We can hear their sounds," he said.
Survivors wrapped in blankets huddled in open fields. Some organized free kitchens, cooking rice, vegetables and lentils in huge vats.
"We have only ourselves to turn to,'' said Ramiklal Jaisa, 72. He and 5,000 others have been camping in a field since Friday.
Vajpayee visited Bhuj Military Hospital as doctors performed abdominal surgery on a 4-year-old child pulled from the rubble Sunday. The people of Gujarat "are not alone in this. There are plans being drafted for rehabilitation and reconstruction of this area," a grim-faced Vajpayee said.
The United States announced Sunday that it would donate $5 million to the rescue efforts.
In New Delhi, Agriculture Minister Bhaskar Barua appealed yesterday to private aid groups for field hospitals, clothing, cranes and other equipment to help clear debris.
Two navy hospital ships and a third vessel equipped with medical equipment, blankets and tents were dispatched from Bombay, he said. About 750 doctors and other health workers, more than 5,000 rescue workers and dozens of bulldozers have been sent, he said.
Pakistan will send a plane loaded with blankets and tents to neighboring India, the Pakistani foreign minister said after New Delhi relented and agreed yesterday to accept aid from Islamabad - an uneasy neighbor against whom it has fought three wars. As many as 18 people in Pakistan died in the quake.
As grieving relatives burned their dead in pyres in Gujarat's grief stricken towns, workers took heart from the occasional rescues.
Sunday night, they called into the concrete wreckage of a seven-story apartment building in Bhuj, thinking they heard the voice of a woman named Meerabeen.
"Can you hear me? Meerabeen, are you there?" called an army rescue worker, bending low to an eight-inch opening in the debris.
After a pause, a faint voice responded. It was Meerabeen's neighbor, Kusumben Myacha, who for three days had been pinned under a massive chunk of cement without food or water, praying to the Hindu gods.
"Kusumben is alive ... Kusumben is alive!" shouted a girl pushing through the crowd. Workers pulled away concrete and metal slabs with their bare hands.
Yesterday, Myacha, 40, recounted how the quake struck when she was in the bedroom of her first-floor apartment. Her husband and their children escaped before the collapse.
"When the quake started I thought I was dead," she said from a bed in a makeshift hospital. During her ordeal, she said, she recited verses from "Hanuman Chalisa," a holy book dedicated to a Hindu god revered for his bravery and loyalty and recited by Hindus to ward off danger.
