Sunday, October 9 2005 17:10 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Islamabad: A day after the massive trembler almost wiped out more than half the population of the forested hill regions of POK, village after village today (Oct 9. 2005) bore the look of ghost towns with survivors reliving the horrors of the quake as rain, muck and fresh tremors hampered rescue work.

Army personnel helped by local volunteers pulled out bodies from under the heap of debris with bare hands, their work rendered twice as difficult due to the overnight rain, which turned the loose dirt into muck.

Chants from the Quran rent the air every time aftershocks from the quake sent shockwaves amongst the remaining survivors, interrupted only with wails of people who have lost their dear ones.

As military helicopters continued rescue and relief, in Balakot, QaumiKot, Kufalgarh, Bagh and surrounding worst hit areas, people covered the dead with white sheets, the injured still awaiting medical help.

Over 17,000 people are dead in PoK area and 90 per cent houses razed to the ground, according to officials. TV channels showed injured, including women and children, their wounds wrapped in blood-soaked clothes eagerly awaiting medical help.

With the improvement in weather after night-long showers, army helicopters, besides providing relief materials ferried the injured from remote regions to the capital and nearby centers.

"Everything was over even before we realized fully what was happening," Rahim Ilahi, mourning the loss of his wife and two daughters was quoted as saying.

"Rocks came tumbling downthe mountainside, the houses fell like cards," Ilahi, a resident of Bagh said, the terror still fresh in his eyes.

The very remoteness of some the villages, army personnel say, is adding to the woes of relief and rescue operations.

Streets lay strewn with remains of houses, trees uprooted and cables lay half hanging from the poles in the region.

With rubbish and boulders piling into the Neelum river, threat of an imminent flood looms large.

The fresh water sources have also choked up with mud and debris and dearth of drinking water in the affected areas is likely to add to the crisis, officials say.

Over 400 children also died yesterday in Balakot, soon after they had settled down in their classrooms in the early hours when the disaster struck.