Monday, October 10 2005 16:30 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Tangdhar(J&K): Piles of rubble now litter the mountains on which their houses once stood. Having lost everything to the devastating temblor, for many a people awaiting food and shelter grief is giving way to anger as relief remained elusive in this inhospitable terrain for the third day.

"We need tents. We need food. We have spent the night out in the open," said a survivor in this remote high altitude area, which now resembles a bombed site with hardly any structure intact.

"I had built my house only recently. It was a new house," said a young man close to tears reflecting the condition of hundreds of hapless survivors for whom life is now a living hell.

With no food and water, for many, who survived the killer quake, the fasting month of Ramzan has virtually become a testing time.

Tangdhar, at 6300 feet and situated close to the LoC, is one of the worst-hit by the magnitude 7.6 quake two days ago and officials say the real extent of damage is yet to be assessed as rescue teams have not yet been able to reach several villages.

Overwhelming scenes of destruction are to be seen in village after village in this region, where majority of the houses have collapsed, and many of those still standing are unsafe as they have developed cracks.

In Rampur, also in North Kashmir, villagers are getting impatient and anger brims over as the wait for relief continues.

"All buildings have collapsed in my village. But for the third straight day, we have not received any help," rued Zahida Bano of Urungua village in Rampur.

A resident from another village in Rampur, Lachipura, said angrily, "We are not getting any help, from Government or from the army. There are no tents, no water, no food. dead bodies are piling up."

The scene is mirrored in several villages close to the Srinagar-Uri Highway, and people now find it safer to camp close to the main roads rather than stay in their houses.

Paranoid about staying indoors, Meena, whose husband is a laborer and who along with the entire family and their few belongings is now awaiting relief by the Highway.

"We are scared of going back to our house. We are scared that it may also collapse," she said.

What the villagers want desperately are tents. "We need shelter, we need tents. We have nowhere to go after our house collapsed," said Vijay Kumar, a laborer from Uri in Baramulla district.

The death co unt has reached has crossed 755 in the state with Baramulla and Kupwara districts in north Kashmir alone accounting for 469 and 259 deaths each. Over 50 army soldiers are also reported to have perished in the Saturday morning quake.