Friday, October 14 2005 14:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Islamabad: Pakistan's chief military spokesman insisted today (Oct 14, 2005) that the search for survivors caught beneath the rubble of last week's earthquake would continue, after officers in the disaster zone said they had been called off.

"We have not lost hope for survivors to be found. Relentless efforts continue to rescue the survivors and at the same time relief efforts are in full swing," Major General Shaukat Sultan told sources in Islamabad.

"No decision has been taken to discontinue the search for survivors," he said.

Sultan was responding to comments by Major Farooq Nasir, the spokesman for the army's emergency relief operations in quake-hit Muzaffarabad, who said, "We have moved from search and rescue to search and recovery".

"The technical teams have told us the chance of survival is now less than two percent," he said, adding that a decision to end rescue missions had been taken overnight in a meeting between army officers and aid agencies here.

The chief UN coordinator here, Alain Pasche, told sources that a decision had been taken to assign no new rescue missions to international teams.

"According to the information we were given last night, no new missions were assigned. But if rescue teams want to go out on the ground themselves they can go," he said.

"The authorities are not assigning new missions," he added.

Almost all the specialist foreign search and rescue teams who rushed to the region in the wake of Saturday's 7.6 magnitude quake have now left the disaster area, journalists said.