India quake: 'Nothing left between the sky and earth'
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An injured man is rescued from a building in Ahmedabad
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By Staff and wire reports
AHMEDABAD, India -- International aid was beginning to flow on Saturday as the number of bodies recovered from India's earthquake reached 3,200. Authorities speculated that up to 15,000 may have perished.
Thousands are missing and rescue workers are digging frantically in the rubble for survivors. Others awaited treatment in hospitals and appealed for doctors and medicine.
"There is nothing left between the sky and the earth any more. Everything has been demolished," said one survivor in a village close to the epicenter. "There is no electricity and no-one from the government has come to help."
The quake toppled buildings in towns and cities at 8:46 a.m. on Friday across Gujarat, a prosperous industrial and agricultural state on India's west coast.
P.K. Lahiri, a Gujarat official, put the number of bodies recoverd at 3,200. India's Defense Minister George Fernandes said the number of those feared dead was approaching 15,000.
Worst hit was Bhuj, a coastal resort near the Pakistan border, about 20 km (14 miles) from the epicentre. Large portions of the town were flattened, with 1,400 reported dead there.
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CNN's Satinder Bindra reports on India's earthquake rescue effort (January 26)
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CNN's Satinder Bindra has more on the devastating earthquake that hit India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal
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Below is an interactive guide to earthquake magnitude and severity:
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Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee considers government action and responses to the disaster
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CNN's Satinder Bindra: Death rate increasing by the hour
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India's Home Minister L K Advani on the known extent of damage
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Governments and relief agencies around the world promised assistance.
Ahmedabad's Vadilal Sarabhai General Hospital was milling with hundreds of people. Policemen with canes and whistles tried to clear the main entrance as the injured sought entry and families desperately searched for relatives.
About 30,000 were injured, according to the state’s home minister, Haren Pandya. Medical teams have been sent to the worst affected areas and authorities were arranging for supplies of flour, milk powder, diesel, petrol and kerosene and water tankers, he said.
The tremor shook high-rise towers 600 miles away in the capital, New Delhi. The quake could be felt as far as 1,200 miles away in Calcutta and coastal Bangladesh.
On Friday night, the glow of hundreds of bonfires dotted the region as thousands of people spent the night shivering in the open, too frightened to go indoors because of possible aftershocks.
'A calamity of national magnitude'
"The earthquake is a calamity of national magnitude," said Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who planned a trip to the area to survey damage. "We have decided to meet the emergency on a war footing," he said. "This is the time for people to rally around."
In Ahmedabad, helmeted rescue workers used iron rods to pry slabs of concrete and metal, searching for survivors. Women wept and rocked back and forth, watching as the few available bulldozers and cranes pushed through the piles of stone that once had housed families and shops.
Beds, children's toys and clothes lay abandoned in the debris, lamp posts and electric pylons were twisted and many buildings were left leaning precariously.
Corpses were piled up on the verandah of the N.S. Hospital, while patients overflowing into the hallways wailed and screamed with broken limbs and bleeding wounds. Press Trust of India reported 70 people died awaiting treatment.
Bruised and bleeding bodies were laid in rows, covered with blankets as relatives sat by mourning.
Offers of help, aid
The Indian government said it is flying 10,000 tents, 10,000 tons of grain, 20 doctors and surgeons, communications and seismology experts to Gujarat. Mobile Red Cross hospitals in Finland and Germany are being readied.
Britain pledged $4.4 million (stg3 million) and a search and rescue team of 60 is on standby to fly out. Switzerland sent a 48-man rescue team, search dogs and aid supplies.
Taiwan readied a team of 64 rescuers, China's Red Cross pledged aid, and neighboring Pakistan offered relief goods. A Russian Il-76 transport plane was bringing 65 rescue workers, sniffer dogs and equipment to search for people in rubble.
U.S. President George Bush said the United States was willing to provide assistance, and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance announced that it will send a five-member earthquake assessment team to India on Sunday.
People in the quake zone are using CNN's online message boards to ask about relatives and relay their experiences. Telephone helplines are also keeping busy.
Injured wait their turn
Officials at a command center said more than 300 were dead in Ahmedabad, more than 650 in Anjar, about 1,400 in Bhuj, as well as 87 dead in Jamnagar, 147 dead in Rajkot, 55 dead in Suranagar, and 53 dead in Surat. In Pakistan, between eight and 15 deaths were reported.
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A rescue volunteer surveys the scene
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Bhuj's main hospital, run by the air force, was crammed with seriously injured people. Nearly 1,000 injured residents were camping outside the hospital waiting their turn, the Star television network reported.
Rescue workers reported that more than 50 high-rise buildings had collapsed and many others had sustained heavy damage. Efforts were under way to rescue as many as 400 people believed trapped in one school.
There were also reports of downed power lines, cracked gas mains, train derailments and damaged roadways.
Many cities were beginning celebrations for India's 51st Republic Day, which commemorates the adoption of the country's constitution, when the quake struck.
The U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado, put the magnitude of the quake at 7.9, though Cabinet minister Pramod Mahajan insisted the quake measured 6.9.
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Members of India's Rapid Action Force clear debris under which residents are feared to be trapped in Ahmedabad
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There were least 83 aftershocks, several measuring up to 5.6 magnitude, in the 10 hours after the quake, said the seismological department at the Bhaba Atomic Center. An apparent aftershock also hit Bangladesh, where hundreds of panicked residents flooded into the streets of Satkhira, on the border with India.
Officials said aftershocks could be expected to days or even weeks.
The quake was the most powerful to strike India since August 15, 1950, when an 8.5 magnitude tremor killed 1,538 people in northeastern Assam state.
Friday's quake was the world's second major quake of the year. On January 13, a quake measuring 7.6 killed at least 700 people in El Salvador and left 10 percent of its population homeless.
CNN New Delhi Bureau Chief Satinder Bindra and Producer Suhasini Haider, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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