The Prime Minister of India, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, yesterday toured the earthquake site in the Kutch region of Guajarat state, in which over 20,000 people are believed to have died.
The bodies of most victims in the Kutch region, 600 miles west of New Delhi, bordering Pakistan, remained rotting under mounds of rubble, four days after the earthquake, causing fears of a disease outbreak.
Besides India, Friday's earthquake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale, was felt in neighbouring Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Mr Vajpayee and several cabinet ministers, including the Home Minister, Mr Lal Krishan Advani, who is an MP from the state, made a helicopter survey of the region. Hopes of pulling people alive from the debris are fast receding. Over 100 small towns and villages, home to over 500,000 people, were flattened within seconds, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless, hungry and injured, begging for food and sleeping in the open.
The Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, estimates the death toll may exceed 20,000. Officials said 7,000 bodies have been recovered so far while over 25,000 remain injured, many seriously, and thousands of others, particularly women and children, are missing.
Rescue workers, including teams from Britain, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey, used specialised equipment, such as thermal-imaging tracers and vehicles capable of traversing rubble. They spent the night looking for survivors but were despondent. "The chances of finding people alive are dimming by the hour," said Ms Michelle Mercier of the 52member Swiss rescue team. "We have found survivors in other locations around the world after six or seven days but that is a miracle," she said.
Relief supplies from around the world were beginning to arrive in the disaster area. They included mobile hospitals, medical supplies, food, blankets and tents. But officials admitted that distributing them remained a problem, as the earthquake victims were spread across several hundred square miles, many of them in remote semi-desert areas, and the local administration had ceased to exist.
Across Bhuj district, the lack of power or water had led to a mass exodus, resembling refugees escaping a war zone. But many do not know where to go as the towns and villages they are familiar with are no longer there. "We will stop wherever we find safety, even if we have to walk to Ahmedabad, 220 miles away," said Mr Chagganbhai Swami, leading his family of eight through a rubble-filled street.
A series of early-morning tremors measuring between 3.5 and 4.6 on the Richter scale swelled the ranks of those fleeing. "I just want to run away from this graveyard which has swallowed my family," said Ms Laxmiben Desai, who lost her husband, father and two brothers, and had pawned two gold bracelets for a place on a truck.
Rescue workers, meanwhile, said they were assaulted by the stench of rotting bodies when they entered Bhuj's ancient fort area and stray dogs were beginning to feed on corpses.
"The big concern now is to retrieve and cremate bodies," said Mr Patrick Fuller of the International Federation of the Red Cross. Local residents too had a meeting with the district magistrate asking him to fumigate the city.
"I dread to think of what will happen to the living if we do not dispose of the dead quickly," Mr Navinbhai Lallan, a Lions Club member, said. Witnesses said looters too were on the rampage as the law and order machinery had crumpled.
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, said India had sought a $1.5 billion dollar loan from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to help recover from the earthquake. "The damage is enormous," Mr Sinha said, adding that Gujarat is India's second most industrialised state and damage to it would hit India's economy, which is already slowing down due to high global oil prices and a weak rupee.
Analysts said the finance minister was likely to raise taxes in the forthcoming budget to offset the losses suffered due to the earthquake. A provisional estimate by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce places the damage at over $3.3 billion.
The earthquake also drove down India's financial markets which analysts said would plunge further after its full impact was known.
For the first time, India cancelled yesterday's Beating Retreat ceremony, a spectacular display by military bands that rounds off its annual Republic Day celebrations.
