Aid flows to Kashmir quake zone, but scene chaotic

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - A steady flow of relief supplies rumbled into Pakistan's earthquake zone on Thursday but the scene remained chaotic as survivors and rescuers struggled to distribute the material.

President Pervez Musharraf called on the country on Wednesday night to unite in the face of tragedy and appealed to the estimated 3.3 million people affected by the quake to be patient, saying relief efforts were gathering pace.

But the message could not even reach most survivors in the northern mountains of the country, now in their sixth day without electricity or reliable supplies of food, water and shelter.

A five-person medical team wandering around Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir and the city worst hit by Saturday's 7.6 magnitude quake, said they had come from an unaffected part of the northern Pakistan territory to offer their services.

"We want to help but we don't know where to start. Where is the organization? Where should we go?" said Rehmat Ullah Wazir, a medical officer in his hospital's department of surgery.

He said he had met at least five other teams in a similar position, sent up to Kashmir with equipment and medicines but with no idea of where to go.

Businessman Achmed Rafiqi returned to Muzaffarabad from the commercial capital of Karachi on Wednesday night to find a pile of rubble where his home and electronics business had been.

"I fear that my whole family is under there," he said. "But how can I find them? How can I bury them? There is no one to help me, not even God."

REAL DEATH TOLL NOT KNOWN

The official death toll in northern Pakistan stood unchanged at 23,000 on Thursday, but that was expected to rise as relief workers slowly reach remote villages deep in mountainous valleys in the foothills of the Himalayas. Another 1,200 people are confirmed dead across the border in Indian Kashmir.

Some local officials and politicians in Pakistan say deaths could exceed 40,000 and local authorities and aid groups were very concerned about the areas not yet visited.