Quake relatives continue anxious wait

Rescue efforts continue as relatives wait for news

LONDON, England -- Thousands of British relatives of people hit by the massive earthquake in India continue their desperate wait for news of their families.

The president of a local Indian community association in Leicester, home to one of Britain's largest Gujarati populations, said on Saturday that damaged telephone lines in India had prevented people contacting their families.

"People are distressed and anxious to hear from their families," Maganbhai Patel said. "People here have not had any contact with their relatives since the earthquake."

Up to 15,000 are feared dead after Friday's quake in Gujarat, the most devastating tremor to strike India in five decades.

The Leicester association, which has between 16,000 and 17,000 members, had organised a celebration on Friday evening in honour of India's Republic Day.

"It turned out to be something rather different. We prayed for those who lost their lives," said Patel, who is also waiting to hear from his brothers in a small village in Gujarat.

At the Shree Kutch Satsang Swaminarayan Temple in Woolwich, southeast London, many devotees come from Kutch, near the epicentre, where 13,000 are feared to have died.

"Families in London and the rest of the United Kingdom are frantically trying to contact relatives," temple spokesman Bharat Patel said. "Nobody has been able to make contact."

Britain joined other countries on Saturday in offering help. The Department for International Development pledged three million pounds ($4.4 million) for the quake victims.

A 69-strong British search and rescue team has flown out to India to try to help find people still buried under collapsed buildings.

Bharat Patel estimated several thousand British Asian citizens, who may have been visiting the area, were unaccounted for.

News of the earthquake put such a demand for information on the Foreign Office that it had to issue a second hotline number on Friday within hours of it being announced, a Foreign Office spokesman said.

The Foreign Office is asking British Indians to make contact with the British Council in Ahmedabad. "Just let the British Council office there know you're well," the spokesman said. "That'll help relatives here."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Gujarat State Government
Red Cross, Red Crescent
British Foreign Office

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