Streams of people clambered into the hills of northern Pakistan carrying aid back to quake-shattered villages Tuesday as clear weather helped a huge relief operation accelerate.

Some villagers had trekked as much as 35 kilometres to the wrecked town of Muzaffarabad to pick up food and blankets as the harsh Himalayan winter approaches.

"We are desperate," said Muhammad Naeem after walking seven hours with dozens of men, women and teenaged boys from his village in the Neelum valley, a region cut off by landslides and which he said had received only a few air drops.

"Our houses have been destroyed and we have nothing left," he said before turning back again. "But we can take only a very small quantity of goods on foot as it is a very difficult and long walk to our village up in the hills."

The quake killed at least 41,000 in Pakistan and injured 67,000, while in India-controlled Kashmir a further 1,300 people died, although there was sensational news for one family near the North West Frontier Province town of Balakot.

Musharraf makes appeals to India

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf appealed to India Tuesday to allow earthquake-stricken Kashmiris to cross the Line of Control which divides the two countries and families.

"We will allow any amount of people coming across Line of Control," he told a news conference in the destroyed Pakistan-controlled Kashmir capital of Muzaffarabad. "If India agrees, we would like to work out the formalities."

6-year-old girl saved after 9 days

Soldiers pulled six-year-old Taj-un-Nisa from the rubble of her home on Monday, nine days after the quake struck her village near the town of Balakot.

Military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said Nisa's parents had asked soldiers to search for the girl under the rubble of their house in Sakin Kunda village, without knowing if she was alive or dead.

Sultan said a soldier found her under the debris."She survived because she was stuck under a cupboard which made some space for her," he said.

The girl just had a minor head injury, said Doctor Ijaz Nazir at the al-Khidmat field hospital in Balakot. "We bandaged her head. She had no fracture. When she was brought she was unconscious, but otherwise she was alright."

Emphasis on relief, not rescue

But the emphasis now is relief, not rescue. Helicopters, back in the air after weekend rains grounded the only means of getting aid deep into the mountains quickly, delivered supplies and brought back people who had lain injured since their world, high in the hills, was shattered 10 days ago.

However, helicopters have not been able to reach some mountainside communities forcing many desperate villagers to trek for hours, even days, in search of help and nor have they been able to deliver enough to those within reach.

"Fifty per cent of Neelum Valley has still not been reached by helicopter or ground troops. It will take another week to 10 days," said Major-General Jawed Aslam Tahir, who is running the air relief operations.

"Given the numbers we're trying to reach and the scale of the commodities we are trying to move, we need a functioning road network and trucks on the road 24 hours a day," said Robert Holden, head of the UN relief operation in Muzaffarabad.

That is not going to happen soon. Rebuilding roads buckled or swept away by landslides will take weeks and much of the relief pouring into the region is heading up into the rugged mountains on two feet or four.

Troops were cutting tracks across landslides so heavily laden mules, which can carry far more than a human, could cross them.

Minister shot dead in Kashmir

India-controlled Kashmir's Junior Education Minister, Ghulam Nabi Lone, was shot and killed in a raid on his home by Muslim militants Tuesday in the region's main city of Srinagar, police said.

"He is dead ... a suicide attacker stormed into his official residence," a senior police officer said. Two of the minister's police bodyguards were also killed.

A militant group based in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, the Islamic Front, claimed responsibility in a call to a local news agency.

Analysts say militants are trying to reinforce they can still strike despite losing many of their own in the earthquake. India also says many rebel camps were destroyed in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Police said at least two militants scaled the wall of the 53-year-old minister's house from an adjoining home of a deputy in the assembly. One of them shot Lone.

Source: China Daily