Musharraf thanks Manmohan Singh for quake aid

Islamabad--Deeply appreciating PM Manmohan Singh's gesture of calling him to express grief over the massive earthquake that struck Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf thanked him for dispatching aid.  

Making a special mention of the Indian Prime Minister in his address to the nation tonight, Musharraf said Singh called him and offered all possible assistance.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "was very kind to ring me up and offer all possible assistance," he said.

"We express our gratitude to him and we have accepted Indian aid in certain form." Significantly, Singh was the only leader whom Musharraf mentioned by name, while expressing gratitude to various countries that had sent aid supplies.

"We have been given a lot of donations. We have been assisted in relief and rescue operations and several medical teams and field hospitals have been established by various countries," he said and mentioned the names of Turkey, the UAE, the United States, the UK, Saudi Arabia, China, Germany, Russia, France, Japan, Switzerland, Spain, Iran, Azerbaijan, Hungary and Bangladesh.

In his address, Musharraf also mentioned a number of telephone calls and the number of letters that he has received from various heads of state.

"We express our deepest gratitude for all your words of kindness, words of sympathy in our hour of need. Thank you very much," he said.

 

UN agencies rushing relief aid to quake-hit Pakistan 

UN agencies are rushing emergency aid to Pakistan while the world body's emergency relief coordinator headed to the quake-hit country after cancelling a visit to the tsunami-stricken Indonesian province of Aceh.

A World Food Program (WFP) convoy of trucks laden with 39 metric tonnes of high-energy biscuits arrived on Wednesday in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad while a second convoy carrying another 40 tonnes of the biscuits was en route to Muzaffarabad, which bore the brunt of Saturday's 7.6-magnitude earthquake, a UN statement said.

The quake killed at least 23,000 people in Pakistan and left 2.5 million homeless.

Two of 10 WFP helicopters assigned to the relief effort were due to arrive in Pakistan on Wednesday, which would enable access by rescue and aid workers to the most remote areas, which have been cut off by landslides, according to the statement.

[inline:1]The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees's office (UNHCR) for its part began distributing badly needed supplies, including tents, plastic sheeting, mattresses, kitchen sets and other items from its warehouses in Peshawar, the statement added.

The World health Organization (WHO) deployed 11 surgical teams and one public health team to quake-hit areas while WHO and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs jointly sent a shipment of cold climate tents, blankets, jerrycans, water storage containers, generators and family kitchen sets.

The World Bank also doubled its inital commitment to the relief effort to 40 million dollars and rushed teams of reconstruction experts.