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hursday, February 1,2001
WORLD
THE BATTALION
Page 3B
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BHACHAU, India (AP) — Rescue work-
irs pulled out more survivors Wednesday just
as bulldozers began breaking down the walls
ol wrecked buiIdings — raising fears that peo
ple buried alive by a devastating earthquake
could be killed by machines and explosives.
The confirmed death count reached 12,000.
I State officials said they believe 13,000 ad
ditional dead are buried in the rubble. Much
ol the relief effort now has turned to caring for
t|ie living, with volunteers setting up a huge
Red Cross field hospital. At least 29,000 peo-
aillUiL pie were injured in the 7.9 magnitude quake
. Biat hit the western state of Gujarat on Friday.
Haren Pandya, the Gujarat home minister,
ibyan
entenced
o life for
errorism
said his toll of 25,000 dead was based on re
ports gathered from government agencies of
bodies recovered, people reported missing and
the estimated number still lying under debris.
Heavy construction equipment and ex
plosives experts have been brought in to clear
debris as rescuers give up hope of finding
more survivors. Many experts say few peo
ple could survive more than 100 hours buried
in the rubble — a mark that was crossed
Tuesday afternoon.
Still, rescuers working in the rubble, dust
and the stench of decaying flesh found a few
survivors Wednesday.
Just as bulldozers smashed into the wall
of a damaged three-story apartment building
in Bhachau, Russian rescuers heard a woman
screaming. The 71-member-Russian team
stopped the bulldozers and began searching,
and saw her hand grabbing at them from un
der a flattened concrete wall.
One Russian rescuer held the woman’s
hand until the masonry was moved, then
pulled Kuntal Thakkar, 22, to safety. She was
rushed to a hospital. Her brother-in-law, Anil
Thakkar, then crawled into the hole in the
rubble. He emerged, saying Kuntal’s husband
had replied from inside the ruins, “I can see
the light. I’m OK.”
“He’s telling me he wants water, that he’s
safe, only his left hand is blocked so he can’t
come out,” Thakkar said while the Russians
worked to free his br,other.
“For six days, they talked to each other,”
he said of the couple after the husband was
pulled out, put on a stretcher and announced
he was “feeling fine.”
A block away, the same Russian team res
cued another man earlier in the day.
In Bhuj, the town closest to the epicenter, an
army team rescued a 12-year-old girl named
Prianka. A demolition team hammering its way
through a destroyed apartment block in Ahmed-
abad discovered 55-year-old Joytosna Gandhi
still alive, next to the body of her teen-age son.
A search team based in Wales headed for
India on Wednesday.
“In other disasters we’ve been to we’ve al
ways found this to be the case, that people
have come out days and days after most
teams have given up and gone home. So we
feel that there is so much that hasn’t been
searched, we should give it a go,” Russ
Vaughan, leader of the eight-man team, said
at Heathrow airport near London.
The international response included vol
unteers from Germany, Finland, Belgium, In
dia and the United States who put up tent poles
Wednesday for what will soon be the largest
field hospital the Red Cross has ever run.
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CAMPZE1ST, Netherlands (AP)
In a verdict that linked Libya to
terrorism, a Scottish court gave a life
Sentence Wednesday to a Libyan in
telligence agent for the murder of 270
people in the bombing of Pan Am
Flight 103 but acquitted a^second
Libyan.
I Tears andjubilation from victims’
relatives greeted the guilty verdict
read out by presiding judge Lord
Ranald Sutherland. The three-judge
Court said it was allowing Abdel Bas-
|et Ali al-Megrahi, 48, the prospect
jof parole in 20 years in view of his
Ige and the fact that he was serving
his sentence in a foreign country.
I The court said it accepted “the ev
idence that (al-Megrahi) was a mem
ber of the JSO, occupying posts of
fairly high rank.” The JSO is the
Libyan intelligence service.
1 It convicted al-Megrahi of
charges that he carried out a “crimi
nal purpose to destroy a civil passen
ger aircraft and murder the occupants
in furtherance of the purposes of said
Libyan intelligence services.”
; The statement bolstered claims of
victims’ relatives that Libyan Col.
<(
Al-Megrahi being
found guilty, that to
lme shows and points
all the evidence to
Gadhafi's feet”
-
M
■ Bert Ammerman
brother of victim
s:
he
:s:
ute
&
Moammar Gadhafi and his govern
ment are responsible for the bombing
of the New York-bound flight over
(Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec. 21,
1988. The conviction could also give
impetus to civil actions that the rela
tives have filed against Libya.
I “Al-Megrahi being found guilty,
that to me shows and points all the
e\ idence to Gadhafi’s feet,” said Bert
Ammerman of Riverdale, N.J., the
brother of victim Tom Ammerman.
He watched the telecast with about
85 others in New York.
| The verdict was the climax of an
$80 million trial and nearly nine
months of hearings at a special court
in the Netherlands. The White House
said U.N. and U.S. sanctions on
Libya would remain in place, and
U.S. and British officials said they
will keep investigating the bombing.
| President Bush said at a Cabinet
Room meeting with members of
Congress that Libya should remain
isolated until Gadhafi agrees to “ac
cept responsibility for this act and to
compensate the families.”
I Jeremy Greenstock, the British
U.N. ambassador, said the main focus
of coming discussions between the
United States, Britain and Libya will
be on compensation and the Libyan
government’s accepting responsibili
ty for the actions of its officials.
I Libya stuck to its denials of offi
cial involvement. State television
cast the trial as a triumph for the
Libyan people “over arrogance, ag
gression and imperialism and all at
tempts to make them bow down.”
Many people in downtown Tripoli,
Libya’s capital, sat around television
and radio sets.
|! Abuzed Dorda, Libya’s ambas
sador to the United Nations, said
Libya respected the verdict. But in an
interview with the Associated Press,
he added that the case in no way im
plicated the government, saying
Libya “has nothing to do with the
Libyan officials.”
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