Word: uri
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Pakistan, a bus service opened between the halves of Kashmir divided between the two warring nations. An aunt and uncle whom Qumayon had never met, separated from him like many Kashmiri families by the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 and intervening wars, came across to see him in Uri, in Indian-held Kashmir. They had traveled from Muzzafarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, just over the Line of Control that separates the Indian and Pakistani portions of Kashmir. He proudly showed off his household, including his eldest son, Sohil, to the visiting aunt and uncle. ?They stayed...
...Until last Saturday, Uri had been a relatively safe place in Kashmir, despite its near proximity to the Line of Control. Aside from some stray shelling every few years from across the Pakistani border 12 miles away, Qumayom says his hometown was an island of peace amid the violence that swept Indian Kashmir when a civil war erupted between Indian soldiers and Muslim militants in 1989. ?Uri was safe,? he says. ?Nothing happened here. It?s always been a place apart. The soldiers did their duties and we did our jobs. We didn't bother each other...
...Thirty-six hours after the disaster, the authorities in Uri say they have counted 400 dead and 3,000 injured in their township alone. They acknowledge that that is a fraction of the likely final toll. Uri Deputy Commissioner Aiyaz Kakroo says 113,000 people live in 95 villages around Uri and 75 of those have suffered ?90% damage,? by which he means houses damaged beyond being inhabitable, or totally destroyed. ?We have fifteen to twenty thousand damaged homes,? he says. ?We need 50,000 blankets and 15,000 tents. So far we have two to three thousand blankets...
...Destruction is massive in Uri," an Indian army spokesman told TIME. "It's close to the epicenter. Initial reports are that not many houses are standing." As buildings crumbled, he added, gas pipes ruptured and fires swept the central market in the town just across the Line of Control on the Indian side of Kashmir. Simultaneously, landslides cut off Uri, and much of the surrounding area, from the world and swatted two buses full with passengers into a rocky mountain gorge. Sixteen Indian soldiers were buried alive in a bunker at Uri. The Police Inspector General of Police, Javed Mukhdoomi...
...helicopters Musharraf dispatched to help victims of the earthquake were diverted from duty scouring the Afghan-Pakistan border for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, one Islamabad official said. Reporters who wanted to travel to the ravaged regions were told they could be flown into the worst hit areas of Uri but were unlikely to be brought back immediately as the military helicopters were pressed into service mainly to bring the injured in for treatment. Could U.S. troops and aircraft in Afghanistan be deployed? That question is a sensitive one on the Pakistani side because of America's unpopularity...