MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, October 10, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Feelings of anger started Monday, October 10, to replace heavy sadness among survivors of the killer quake that hit Asia, with swifter aid flow urgently needed and Pakistan saying the death toll from the weekend earthquake could hit 40,000.

Anger and looting erupted over the speed of the massive relief effort as hundreds of thousands of people, many left hungry and homeless by the quake's destruction, awaited help from rescuers battling difficult conditions.

More than 48 hours after the 7.6-magnitude quake wiped away entire villages and buried victims under piles of debris, the full scope of the devastation -- and the enormous cost in human lives -- began to emerge, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"It is a whole generation that has been lost in the worst affected areas," Pakistani army spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP.

A senior official said the quake had killed between 30,000 and 40,000 people in the mountains of northeast Pakistan, and injured another 60,000.

The quake centered its fury in northern Pakistan and Pakistani-held Kashmir, a mountainous region where untold numbers of children were entombed when schools and houses collapsed under the worst quake to hit Pakistan in decades.

The huge international rescue effort that has swept into Pakistan has been severely hampered by the treacherous terrain and huge quake-triggered landslides that wiped out many roads, even though some reopened Monday.

Turkish medical teams help Kashmiri survivors. (Reuters)

"We are not mourning our dead today, we are mourning our ties with the government," magistrate Raja Mohammad Irshad, in the remote town of Bagh, who lost a sister-in-law, three nephews and two cousins, told AFP.

"We are asking whether they think we are human beings or animals, or non-living things," he said.

In Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-held Kashmir, people ransacked military trucks that had just arrived and took food, tents, blankets and medicines, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

One group broke into a petrol station to get fuel to burn wood for cooking and warmth, while others snatched government cars and jeeps.

"People are starving. They have lost all their family members, their belongings," local resident Akram Shah told AFP. "Everything is gone, people are buried alive. Nobody is helping us to find them."

An AFP reporter who flew over Pakistani-held Kashmir in a military helicopter described scenes of utter devastation. The ground was littered with the ruins of demolished houses.

Rescue teams, meanwhile, raced to find survivors in the rubble and comfort the suffering.

In open fields, hundreds of people waited for help beside the dead and wounded.

Residents in some places dug with their bare hands to find their loved ones, while rescue teams with sniffer dogs and specialist equipment hunted for survivors and set up field hospitals to cope with the injured.

Aid agencies said more than 120,000 people, many of them children, were in urgent need of shelter and up to four million could be left homeless by the killer earthquake.

The quake, South Asia's strongest for 100 years, may also have killed another 2,000 people in India.

Survivors were facing an array of problems -- freezing overnight temperatures, rain, landslides, scarce food, little shelter, no communications networks and almost non-existent healthcare.

The United Nations said more helicopters were needed urgently to bring aid to the hardest-hit villages, most of which are nestled on hard-to-reach forested slopes 10,000 feet (3,300 meters) high in the foothills of the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountain ranges.

Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, said Pakistan had deployed its own substantial fleet of helicopters, but that the scale of the disaster required more choppers and small fixed-wing aircraft.

The United States responded by offering eight military helicopters -- five twin-rotor Chinooks and three Blackhawks based in neighboring Afghanistan -- and two C-130 aircraft loaded with tents, blankets and other relief supplies.

Afghanistan also said it would send four military helicopters, medical teams and three tones (tons) of medicine.

Pakistan confirmed it had also accepted an offer of aid from neighboring nuclear rival India, with which it has fought two wars over disputed Kashmir.

More choppers are urgently needed to fly aid for survivors in remote areas. (Reuters)

Energy-rich Gulf states have offered emergency aid, including a 100-million-dollar donation from Kuwait Monday, to Pakistan and other nearby countries struck by the devastating earthquake.

Offers of also aid continued to pour in from around the world. The United States said it had provided 50 million dollars, the World Bank offered 20 million dollars and the Asian Development Bank pledged 10 million dollars.

Kuwait, one of the world's largest oil producers, announced a 100-million-dollar aid package for Pakistan which was most hit by Saturday's quake.

Half of the amount will be offered in the form of relief assistance while the other 50 million dollars will be used to repair infrastructure damaged by the quake, according to a statement issued after a weekly cabinet meeting, according to AFP.

"The cabinet expressed its warmest condolences and sympathy with the families of the victims and those affected by the earthquake," it said.

The cabinet assigned Kuwait's Red Crescent Society to cooperate with international aid organizations in order to send the relief assistance to Pakistan.

It also asked the state-owned Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) to oversee infrastructure repair projects in areas hit by the quake.

Several Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have announced emergency humanitarian aid to Pakistan and other nearby countries affected by the quake, although no figures were available for the aid packages.

Saudi King Abdullah, who called Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf Monday to present his condolences, has ordered a "rapid" establishment of an airlift of doctors, medicines, tents, covers and food to Pakistan and India.

A spokesman at the Qatari foreign ministry said Doha has also decided to contribute with urgent humanitarian assistance to the victims in Pakistan.

United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahayan ordered the immediate dispatch of humanitarian aid to quake-hit areas of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

The UAE emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai have dispatched separate police rescue teams to Pakistan to help search for survivors and treat the wounded.

Yemen and the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain have also pledged to provide immediate humanitarian assistance to Pakistan through their respective Red Crescent organizations.

The Muslim Arab Gulf states, which are witnessing a construction boom, host millions of Asians, mainly Pakistanis and Indians who constitute the bulk of laborers in the monarchies.

But appeals for private donations in the Gulf have so far not been largely heeded, despite the fact that the quake struck Muslim-dominant Pakistan during Islam's holy fasting month of Ramadan which calls for piety and help to the needy.

"A total of 4.3 million dollars has so far been collected in a current account which was opened Sunday in the United Arab Emirates," Pakistani consulate spokesman Zafer Iqbal told AFP.

Khaled Dhiab, an official of the Qatari Red Crescent, told AFP that "our objective is to collect one million dollars from donors during Ramadan... we are counting on civil society to help us."

The Qatari Charity Foundation has sent tents, medicines, clothes, covers and drinking water worth 100,000 dollars to Pakistan while the Sheikh Eid Foundation has made an initial donation of 30,000 dollars.