reports of a major aftershock in the region of an earthquake which already killed tens of thousands of people and injured many more here and in nearby Pakistan.
Gospel for Asia (GFA), which supports Asian Christian preachers, said a relief team of 13 GFA missionaries had managed to enter the town of Srinigar in the Indian controlled part of Kashmir. GFA President K.P. Yohannan said that permissions had also been received from Pakistan authorities to send missionaries across the border, where an aftershock jolted parts of Pakistan on Thursday, October 13, further panicking already hungry, homeless survivors.
The 5.6-magnitude aftershock was centered 85 miles (135 kilometers) north of Islamabad near the epicenter of Saturday’s 7.6-magnitude quake that demolished whole towns, mostly in Kashmir. Thursday’s quake reportedly shook buildings, but there was apparently no significant damage in an already demolished region.
"There was a lot of panic. People were scared. Even those who were sleeping in tents came out. Everybody was crying," said Nisar Abbasi, 36, an accountant camping on the lawn of his destroyed home in Muzaffarabad, a badly hit city in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, in an interview with The Associated Press (AP) news agency.
WOMAN TRAPPED
A 22-year-old woman trapped in the rubble in Muzaffarabad reportedly died Thursday, October 13, after the aftershock disrupted efforts to rescue her, rescuers and witnesses said.
The Pakistan tremors also put pressure on survivors in northern India, where GFA claimed Saturday’s earthquake caused already "significant damage to the GFA Bible College" in the Jammu area of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir. "While none of the students were seriously hurt, they have slept outside for several nights in fear of further tremors. Hundreds of people in Jammu have lost their homes as well, and winter is already on the way," GFA added.
The permission for aid carrying GFA missionaries to enter Pakistan, a mainly Muslim nation, came shortly after human rights watchers expressed concern that the country’s embattled Christian minority would endure further persecution and a lack of aid in earthquake areas there.
"DESPISED MINORITY"
"Christians are a despised minority in Pakistan and endure discrimination in many forms" and they are "likely to be shunted to the end of the queue as regards meeting their practical needs after a disaster," stressed religious rights group Barnabas Fund earlier this week in comments to BosNewsLife.
Barnabas Fund said it was concerned about the aid distribution among Christians in Pakistan, where churches have been bombed and Christians have been imprisoned on what human rights watchers describe as "trumped up charges" of showing disrespect to the Koran.
The earthquake that hit especially Pakistan and North India measured 7.6 on the Richter scale, but was also felt in the Indian capital New Delhi and in Afghanistan. BosNewsLife New Delhi Bureau Chief Vishal Arora and his wife Tammy narrowly survived when their third floor house was shaking during the powerful quake Saturday, October 8.
STRONG TREMORS
"The tremors were so strong that they shook our third floor house," he explained earlier. The United Nations emergency relief chief Jan Egeland, who flew by helicopter to Muzaffarabad on Thursday, October 13, to assess relief efforts told reporters he fears that "we are losing the race against the clock in the small villages" cut off by blocked roads.
He noted that winter was on the way and that people already spend several nights in the open or buried beneath rubble. Like other Christian organizations, including Christian Aid UK and several Catholic agencies and churches, GFA said it was trying to "comfort the victims."
"It is Jesus, and Him alone, who can give any kind of comfort," noted GFA President Yohannan in comments to BosNewsLife. He said he had urged supporters to "pray for team members as they minister to earthquake survivors in Kashmir and Pakistan."
