LONDON (AP) — Indian communities around the world waited anxiously Friday for news of friends and relatives as emergency workers scrambled to clear the rubble and count the dead in the wake of the worst earthquake to hit India in more than 50 years.
Governments and aid agencies offered help and sympathy as the death toll from the 7.9 magnitude quake in Gujarat state near the Pakistani border continued to rise.
"I am very much concerned," said Jayana Shah, 37, who moved to Leicester, England, from Gujarat six months ago, and spent much of Friday trying to reach relatives in Ahmedabad, the state's commercial capital.
"I have everybody except my husband and two children there," she said. "I think there is a problem with the phone lines which means we cannot get through, but it sets your mind racing. My brother and my husband's brother live in tall buildings and we know many of those have collapsed."
Jignesh Valand, 27, was able to reach his wife's relatives in Ahmedabad.
"They are OK, but they said it had got bad," he said. "There are many buildings broken and they are still in shock."
Britain's Department for International Development said it was giving $4.5 million in assistance.
In Washington, President Bush extended condolences to victims on both sides of the Indian-Pakistani border.
"Earthquakes know no political boundaries," he said. "I send my condolences and those of the American people to the families of the many victims in the cities and villages of Gujarat and elsewhere."
Bush said the United States was willing to provide assistance "as needed and desired" by India and Pakistan.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer sent a telegram to his Indian counterpart to offer German assistance, and German President Johannes Rau wrote to the Indian president with condolences.
The charity wing of Germany's Lutheran Church offered $47,000 in help and called for further donations, while the German aid agency Caritas International offered $95,000 and said it would send an aid team to Gujarat. In Italy, Caritas launched a $1 million appeal to assist its India branch.
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien extended his sympathy and said Canada's government was considering how best to help.
A Russian Il-76 transport plane was dispatched to India with 65 rescue workers, sniffer dogs and equipment to search for people in rubble, according to the Interfax news agency.
In Switzerland, a five-member emergency team from the Swiss Disaster Relief Corps headed to India, and the government said a bigger rescue team was ready to go as soon as it received a request from the Indian government.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies launched an appeal for $1.25 million, and said much of that would go directly to the Indian Red Cross to buy emergency supplies locally. Red Cross officials were also headed to the disaster zone to assess needs.
Norway's foreign ministry announced up to $1.3 million in emergency aid, and said $285,000 was being immediately given to the Norwegian Church Aid group to help especially vulnerable groups in Gujarat.
The Danish Red Cross pledged $25,000 to India for food, housing, clothes and clean water.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs put its disaster team on alert and dispatched a five-member earthquake assessment group to India, a U.N. spokesman in New York said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan extended condolences to the bereaved in India and Pakistan.
In Dhaka, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed shock at the devastation, and in China, Premier Zhu Rongji and the top legislator, Li Peng, also offered condolences.
Li expressed "profound sympathy" in a letter to the leaders of India's Parliament, and Zhu wrote to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to express sympathy for the "tragic loss of life and property."
Czech president Vaclav Havel sent Indian President K.R. Narayanan a telegram offering sympathy for the "natural catastrophe that descended on your land and unfortunately took a toll of human lives."