In Kashmir, burials amid the destruction

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan -- A wail of prayer rang across the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir as four men carried a tiny bloodstained bundle on a stretcher down the rubble-strewn streets.

But the dignified procession to mark the death of an infant went largely unnoticed, because in Muzaffarabad an estimated 11,000 people perished in Saturday's earthquake -- the highest single death toll of a calamity that President Pervez Musharraf said yesterday had claimed more than 20,000 lives.

The effects of the quake's violent convulsions were apparent. Roadways were turned into gray ridges of collapsed concrete, twisted metal, and crushed cars. Power lines were strewn across streets, tarmac surfaces split in two, and even two small trucks hung from a tree, apparently flung from the crest of a nearby hill.

As the United States and several other Western countries scrambled to send emergency teams to Pakistan, local relief workers estimated that thousands of bodies remained untouched beneath the rubble, buried beyond the reach of the only rescue tools available -- sledgehammers and human hands.

As darkness fell last night, city residents huddled by lamplight outside their destroyed homes and shops, terrified to sleep under a roof again. Other residents set out for Mansehra, 33 miles to the west, fleeing by car, rickshaw, or on foot.

Outside one half-collapsed shop, Waqar Qayuun stood guard over the remains of his brother Zulfiqar, whose body was wrapped in a sheet.

''We walked through the night to get here this morning," he declared, a relative by his side. ''And we will carry him home on our shoulders if we have to."

But first they would have to find his father -- who had gone in search of another brother, also missing. ''We pray he is not dead, God willing," he said.

In the smaller town of Garhi Habibullah, 20 miles from Muzaffarabad, hope was all but extinguished. A dead dog lay on a road that curled through a deserted bazaar. At the crest, the road reached a place where, until last weekend, there were schools for boys and girls, a modest hospital, and a cemetery. Now only the tombstones were still standing.

Maqsood Rehman stood chest-high inside a fresh grave, his arm stained with the blood of the dead and injured. The volunteer said he had dug 11 graves in the past two days, most for the victims of a girl's secondary school barely 50 yards away.

Watchman Muhammad Shafiq said the school crumpled in an instant when Saturday's quake hit. He was working at the time but escaped with seconds to spare, dashing into an open space as the concrete folded behind him.

The school secretary, with whom he had been speaking an instant earlier, did not escape. ''We buried him a few hours ago," he said.

A team of local rescuers -- teachers, mullahs, traders, and medical workers -- initially scrambled to find survivors, peeling back the cheap corrugated metal roof and saving 95 lives, Shafiq said.

But lacking proper cutting tools and fearing to probe too deep into the tottering wreckage, they eventually gave up. ''We could hear voices until about 1 o'clock. We pulled the bodies out until 4. By 6 it was quiet," he said.

By yesterday they had recovered 150 bodies but estimated there could be 100 more, he said. As he spoke the soil trembled with a fresh tremor.

At the time of the quake, the local hospital was packed with women and children waiting in line for vaccines, said medical assistant Zerina Iqbal, standing in the wreckage. Now the waiting room was crushed, three bodies had been recovered, and she feared up to 100 more were hidden inside the wreckage.

''We have had some tremors here before," she said. ''But nothing like this -- not even in my parents' time."

Inevitably despair turned to anger, with many victims feeling abandoned by Musharraf's government. ''Thirty six hours and not one government person has come to visit. Can you believe it?" cried Muhammad Farooq as military helicopters buzzed overhead, carrying victims from Muzaffarabad to a district hospital.

A chorus of indignation rose behind him. ''Our homes are 60 years old and are still standing. The government buildings went up just three years ago, and look at them now," said another man, gesturing impatiently at the rubble.

Rescue operations continued in nearby Balakot, and makeshift ambulances raced along the twisting roads to the main hospital at Mansehra. But the medical staff was overwhelmed.

''We have no proper antibiotics, no pain killers, and hardly any instruments," said one despairing doctor.