Heavy rains and hailstorms in northern Pakistan added to the woes of earthquake victims late Saturday, hampering the rescue effort and making conditions miserable for thousands of people forced to sleep in the open, dpa reported. "People around me have no cover whatsoever, and the clouds are about to burst down," local TV reporter Sayed Sabooq said from a small village near the main hill station of Murree. Officials and media reports said the aftermath of the massive 7.6 magnitude quake was turning into a "nightmare" for those affected. The number of fatalities had by late Saturday risen to at least 3,000, some 1,600 of them in Muzaffarabad alone, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, private media sources said. Independent sources said up 75 per cent of the city, located around the Neelum and Jehlum rivers, had been damaged. Police officials in the Northwestern Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afghanistan spoke of at least 1,500 casualties in different districts of the province. Pakistan army authorities meanwhile also said that as many as 200 army personnel lost their lives in the earthquake. Kashmir is one of the largest areas of military concentration in Pakistan. A senior army official said landslides triggered by aftershocks were largely responsible for the deaths of the soldiers. Six officers were among those killed. Reports meanwhile said that 400 children had been buried alive in the town of Mansehra, after their school collapsed. Mansehra is located on the Karakurum Highway, the former "Silk Road" that links Pakistan with China.
