MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan -- For two days, the young tailor lay trapped under concrete slabs and wood beams, dead bodies flanking him, in what used to be a two-story building. On Monday, British rescuers pulled the dusty, wide-eyed man into the sunlight.\n"I haven't eaten in three days, but I'm not hungry," said the 20-year-old man, who identified himself only as Tariq. He begged instead for water.\nThe eight Britons used a body-detecting dog, drills, chain saws and crowbars to extricate Tariq from the ruins 54 hours after Pakistan's worst-ever earthquake. He suffered a leg injury and was carted away on a door.\nTariq's rescue from the rubble was one of many reported in the mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Two girls were plucked from a collapsed school in Balakot, and a woman and child were pulled from an apartment building in Islamabad -- notes of hope amid a massive humanitarian crisis.\nInternational aid started pouring in Monday. Aircraft loaded with supplies came from the United States, Britain, Japan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Rival India, Russia, China and Germany also offered assistance.\nEight U.S. helicopters -- five Chinook transport choppers and three Black Hawks for heavy lifting -- were diverted from the war in neighboring Afghanistan. They carried supplies, tarpaulins and equipment, including high-tech cameras for finding buried survivors.\nThree military cargo planes with blankets, tents, meals and water also landed in Islamabad.\n"Pakistan is one of our closest allies in the war on terror and we want to help them in this time of crisis," military spokeswoman Sgt. Marina Evans said in Kabul, Afghanistan.\nWashington pledged up to $50 million in relief and reconstruction aid, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said.\n"We have under way the beginning of a very major relief effort," he said.\nDesperate Pakistanis huddled against the cold and some looted food stores because aid still had not reached remote areas of mountainous Kashmir, where Saturday's magnitude-7.6 earthquake flattened villages, cut off power and water and killed tens of thousands.
Officials predict the death toll, now estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000, will climb because of exposure and disease. With winter just six weeks away, the United Nations has said 2.5 million people near the Pakistan-India border need shelter.\nInjured people were airlifted from remote areas, and Pakistan's army distributed rice to starving survivors.\nPresident Gen. Pervez Musharraf said his government was doing its best to respond. He had appealed for international help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote areas cut off by landslides.\n"We are doing whatever is humanly possible," Musharraf said. "There should not be any blame game. We are trying to reach all those areas where people need our help."\nPakistan said it would accept aid from longtime rival India, which promised tents, food, medicine and other aid.\nThe nations have fought two wars over Kashmir, which both claim as theirs. Pakistan suffered the worst of the damage and casualties, and India reported 865 deaths in its portion of the Himalayan province.\nHowever, Pakistan declined an offer of Indian helicopters to help distribute aid and has ruled out a joint rescue operation along the disputed frontier.\nWith winter approaching, thousands of Pakistanis who lost their homes huddled in tents and in the open. Many lit fires using wood from collapsed houses.\nThe capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, was devastated, with at least 11,000 people reported dead. Assistant city commissioner Masood-ur Rehman said 90 percent of the city, and all its government and educational institutions, were destroyed. Relief efforts were hampered by roads buried by landslides.\n"Bodies are scattered in the city," he said. "Ninety percent of victims are still buried under the debris. We are helpless. The city is out of order."\nIn one neighborhood, shopkeepers scuffled with looters scavenging crushed stores for cooking oil, rice, biscuits and flour.\nThe storeowners and looters fought with large sticks and threw stones, and some looters suffered head wounds. No police were in the area.\n"We haven't eaten anything for two or three days. The shops are closed and we haven't got anything from the government," said a 20-year-old man who refused to identify himself as he ferreted away stolen goods.\n"We are desperate and hungry"
