The F10 district used to be considered one of the best addresses in Islamabad. Government officials, business people and high-paid foreigners lived here in the Margalla Towers, a modern apartment complex in Ayub National Park. Maay Fairs lived on the second floor.

The diminutive Iraqi, with bright blonde highlights in her hair, had just placed the breakfast dishes on the table for her children and husband, a United Nations worker, when the earth started to shake. It was just before 9 a.m. local time. Fairs grabbed her youngest child, two-year-old Abbas. Then eight floors of her apartment building came crashing down on top of her, as if a mountain had slid into the valley. Afterwards, it was pitch black and silent. 

Three hours later, rescue worker Andy Banbridge was boiling water for his coffee in Suffolk, England, as the news hits the radio. The No. 1 story is the earthquake in Pakistan. But the 39-year-old heard only one thing: magnitude 7.6. That's very strong, he thought to himself.

Islamabad is located 6,000 kilometers away from Suffolk.

Banbridge left a note on the kitchen table for his wife Sue. On it, he wrote: "I have to leave quickly." Eighteen hours later he found himself standing in his uniform before Maay Fair's collapsed apartment building. Rapid UK, the name of his private rescue initiative for earthquake victims, is emblazoned on the back of his blue overalls. Banbridge's organization has also provided relief in rescue efforts after earthquakes in India, Algeria, Turkey and Iran.

A scene of mass devastation

The cement roof of Margalla Towers lies like a giant tombstone over the 12-meter-tall mountain of rubble. Before the quake, 160 people lived here. Seventy are now missing. Those who weren't killed instantly by the quake still have a chance: People rescued within 24 hours have an 84 percent chance of survival, but after 72 hours, the chances are only 5 percent.

Last Saturday's earthquake was the worst ever experienced by Pakistan since the country was established in 1947. It quickly became clear to President General Pervez Musharraf that his country could not deal with a disaster of this scale on its own. Entire cities have been flattened, there are tens of thousands of dead, and estimates of more than 50,000 injured and 2.5 million homeless people. 

The German government offered immediate aid; the Pakistani government accepted it just one hour later. Everything was needed: search and rescue experts, medicine, tents, blankets and food. But the Pakistanis initially forgot to order one important tool: helicopters.

When the 15-member rescue team from Germany's federal disaster relief agency, THW (Technische Hilfswerke), landed in Islamabad on Monday morning one week ago, there were no helicopters available to take rescue workers to the worst-hit earthquake regions in Kashmir, which is located about 100 kilometers to the northeast. Eighteen precious hours had already been lost by the time the Germans arrived in Muzaffarabad. The capital of the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir, Muzaffarabad has served become the hub of all of the relief aid that has been arriving in Pakistan.

Political posturing as people die

The center of destruction also happens to be the political epicenter of the region, which both Pakistan and India claim to be their own. The two enemy states have waged two wars over the exceptionally beautiful valley in the Himalaya mountains. There have been overtures of peace between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan's Musharraf in recent years. But the Pakistani "Azad Kashmir" remains the home of suspected training camps for militant "freedom fighters," who then slip across the border into the Indian state Jammu and Kashmir, where they conduct attacks against Indian soldiers and military installations. For its part, the Indian army has been fighting "terrorists" -- a situation that has made the people here feel like they have been in a perpetual state of war for past 58 years. 

Despite this, India offered the Pakistanis aid -- including helicopters. And unlike the American Chinooks and German CH-53 that were flown to Pakistan from Afghanistan only after a delay of several days, the Indian helicopters were made available immediately. They could likely have been used to rescue hundreds of seriously injured and to provide food and medicine for survivors in the villages that had been cut off by the earthquake.

But Musharraf opposed allowing military craft to cross the so-called Line of Control, the border between the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of the region. It didn't take long for a suspicion to take hold that India might take advantage of Pakistan's post-quake vulnerability to spy on enemy territory. But the Indians were still able to deliver a goodwill gesture: Last Tuesday, an Indian cargo plane carrying 25 tons of relief goods landed in Rawalpindi.

By this point, in nearby Islamabad, rescue work was in full swing. Every few hours, Andy Banbridge entered a blue tent set up by Rapid UK in front of the Margalla Towers. He drank water and ate a chocolate bar. Three people had been rescued alive so far from Ayub Park. But the chances of finding any more survivors who have been trapped by the rubble, were diminishing fast. 

The backhoes had removed another concrete pillar to create a new opening for the rescue workers. They lowered highly sensitive microphones into the opening; small cameras were used to take pictures. Bambridge switched on a flashlight built into his helmet and forced himself into a narrow shaft. 

Balakot feels brunt of quake

Until last Saturday, Balakot, a city 100 kilometers north of Islamabad with about 20,000 residents, was a popular tourist destination for people from around the world. The city is located in the mountains, at the beginning of the lovely Kaghan Valley, divided by the Kunhar River. 

But now Balakot is in a valley of death  . The earthquake didn't leave a single building standing. The pungent smell of rotting corpses fills the air; men carry their stricken relatives on wooden stretchers, and the injured sit lethargically on the side of the road. The only emergency teams here have arrived from China, France and Abu Dhabi. It took four days for the Pakistani army showed up.

Balakot's police chief, Khalid Khan, is wearing his proper blue beret, but he's injured, too. His hand is bleeding. Still, the police officer is doing his best to coordinate, to organize, to help show people the way. 

More than 80 percent of the residents here have died, he says, and 16,000 are buried in the rubble. But nobody knows for sure exactly how many have died. The injured have been trekking 50 kilometers out of here by foot to Abbottabad, where Pakistani doctors are working day and night tending to the injured -- putting casts on broken limbs and amputating arms and legs from victims. 

In Balakot, where about 400 school children were left buried beneath the cement rubble of their classrooms at Shaheen Public School, dramatic scenes are playing out. As soon as the body of a child is uncovered, family members descend on the corpse, wailing in tears of mourning. 

Just around the bend, Rubina Mustafa has been standing for hours next to a pile of rocks under which the 35-year-old knows that her eight-month-old daughter is buried. But attorney Ifthiar Hangiri isn't waiting anymore -- he's already pulled the bodies of 14 of his 25 family members out of the rubble of the house they once shared. He complains that it was militant mujahedeen who helped him recover the bodies of his relatives, not the government of Pakistan. And Sabaz Sali, a 60-year-old former officer, roams through the destroyed city in a trance. Pointing his index finger, he begins talking to himself. Sali's brother and three nephews are dead, and his wife and two sons are seriously injured. It's a twist of fate that has broken his heart. 

A small miracle

Back in Islamabad, Andy Banbridge is exhausted -- but he's feeling a sudden rush of adrenalin. It's 10 p.m. and  tapping is heard against the cement. "Is anybody there?" the Brit says. "We're going to get you out."

It takes another hour before Banbridge and a colleague are able to pull Maay Fairs and her son Abbas out of a wreckage. They've been stuck beneath the rubble of the towers for 63 hours. The Iraqi survived in a small cavity in the rubble, her legs trapped and her small child held firmly against her belly. 

A short while later, Maay Fairs is laying at Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad. Her small body is covered with blood and he right foot is in a cast. She says Allah saved her and that she wants to call Andy Banbridge. That she will return to her home city of Baghdad. There's nothing left for her here in Islamabad -- her husband and second son are dead.