A British rescue team, which found a victim still alive, trapped under the rubble of western India's earthquake, just before they were to abandon their search, postponed their pullout by another 24 hours yesterday.
"We cannot leave having found someone alive," said Mr James Brown from the British Department for International Development, which sponsors the 69-member British rescue team.
They had been planning to give up their search today following their tacit admission that there was hardly any chance of finding anyone still alive in Gujarat state's worst-affected town of Bhuj after four days of being buried under rubble.
But having made contact with the trapped victim they sent in water and a medical kit, deployed a six-member extrication team and decided to stay on an extra day, a team member, Mr John Hayden said. This greatly encouraged hundreds of despondent Bhuj residents, still hopeful of seeing their relatives and friends rescued from the debris. And, in Bhachau, a small town about 50 miles east of Bhuj which was almost completely flattened by the tremors, a Russian rescue team pulled a 75-year-old woman from the wreckage of her two-storey house, over 100 hours after she became trapped beneath it.
Ms Kunvar Ben, who was pinned under a roof beam weighing over two tonnes, shouted in agony to her rescuers to hurry, as the Russian specialists worked gingerly in an operation lasting three hours to ensure nothing further collapsed when they finally extricated her.
"I'm afraid in here. Get me out," she screamed as her rescuers shored up blocks of concrete that had been crushing her for more than four days.
Meanwhile, defying all other estimates, the Indian Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, said over 100,000 people may have perished in last Friday's earthquake, which was felt across the entire sub-continent.
"If my worst dreams come true, the death toll could be in six figures," he said after touring the disaster-stricken area.
Gujarat state and other federal officials, however, stuck to their earlier fatality figure of around 20,000, with local authorities having recovered around 7,000 bodies so far. The military, which has started its biggest ever rescue operation in the earthquake-affected region, also echoed the opinion of other international specialist rescue teams about the possibility of pulling more survivors from the debris.
They said their immediate priority was disposing of rotting bodies to prevent the outbreak of disease and providing medical assistance to the thousands injured, suffering mainly from fractures.
They are also beginning to concentrate on giving shelter to hundreds of thousands of homeless people, sleeping in the open in freezing temperatures and clearing mounds of rubble to begin reconstruction.
Earthquake victims, meanwhile, feared being set upon by organised robber gangs. The handful of survivors in once prosperous Bhachau, where nearly 90 per cent of houses have been wiped out, said these gangs were moving openly from street to demolished street, looting anything of value they wanted without fear of the police. Operating in jeeps they hijacked suitcases, refrigerators, air conditioners and television sets lying in the rubble.
Many in Bhachau were prosperous families from Kutch's Vagad business community with rich relatives across India and abroad who regularly sent money home.
"There is not a single policeman to be seen. There is no security," said Mr Suresh Bhai Thakor, who was robbed of jewellery worth over 7.5 million rupees (£160,000) in Bhachau. "Nature has played a horrible joke on us, but now our own people are looting us in an inhuman manner," he said.
Police admitted not patrolling the devastated areas, as they, too, had lost families, homes and in several instances even their stations, jeeps and communication equipment.
Six aftershocks rocked the Bhuj area through the night but caused no damage.
A seven-month-old baby was rescued in Bhuj later yesterday after more than four days buried under the rubble.
