PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF suspended the purchase of 77 US fighter jets yesterday, saying that the money was needed for reconstruction after last month’s devastating earthquake.

Mr Musharraf, an army general, made the announcement during a visit to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. The 77 F16s would cost up to $10 billion. “I am going to postpone that,” Mr Musharraf said. “We want maximum relief and reconstruction efforts.”

Up to 80,000 people died in the earthquake, hundreds of thousands lost their homes and countless survivors will carry their scars for the rest of their lives.

A young mother named Prachey, crushed in the rubble of her home and now being treated at the US Army field hospital in Muzaffarabad, is one of thousands facing a bleak future because of their crippling injuries. When her husband, Abdur Rehman, was told by doctors that they might have to amputate her arm, he shook his head. “I will not permit this. I will let her die rather than allow cutting her arm,” he said as he tried to take her away. “She would not be able to work, anyway.”

Pakistan is a country without a welfare safety net, and in its remote northern villages physical disability is often a worse fate than death. For poor subsistence farmers scraping a living from the harsh mountains, a dependant who cannot work is seen as a huge liability. “It’s a cruel fact of life in those areas,” Haris Khalique, an official of a welfare organisation, said.

Aid agencies say that the number of people left severely disabled by the earthquake stands at between 6,000 and 7,000 — the majority of them women and children who were trapped inside their homes or schools. “Many of them have spine injuries and crushed bones,” Sher Shah, the secretary-general of the Pakistan Medical Association, said.

Amputations are among the commonest operations being carried out at crude field hospitals and overstretched government hospitals across Pakistan. According to the health department, almost a thousand have taken place at government hospitals in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Muzaffarabad alone. The number nationwide is thought to be more than double that.

Many of the amputations were carried out soon after the earthquake, when a few doctors were struggling to cope with the huge influx of victims. “Many doctors were inexperienced and did not want to take any risk,” Dr Shah said.

Nearly a month later the lack of medical treatment in remoter areas means that many people are having amputations because relatively minor injuries have become infected.

The sudden jump in the number of disabled is likely to prove a big strain on an impoverished Pakistani Government. Social workers expect to see more beggars on the streets.

There are only two factories in Pakistan that produce prosthetic limbs, and the Government is considering importing more from abroad. Psychiatrists have emphasised that amputations take a psychological toll, especially on the very young. Uniza Niaz, a doctor, said: “They have a huge sense of loss and many of them suffer from acute depression.” Mohammed Rahim, 10, had his left arm amputated in an Islamabad hospital after he was pulled from the rubble of his village school. He is now so scared that he does not want to return to school.

It is estimated that as many as a quarter of the injured show signs of serious mental trauma, but the relief agencies can spare few resources for services such as counselling.

The United Nations said yesterday that it might have to suspend relief operations if funds did not reach it quickly. Donors have pledged only one quarter of the funds required.

Officials say that may be too late, with three weeks left before winter cuts off remote areas for the next six months. “If people are dead by next year, reconstruction is of no use,” Jan Egeland, the UN head of emergency relief, said.

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