A halt in heavy rains Monday allowed helicopter relief flights to resume across Pakistan's quake zone, but fresh landslides hampered efforts to move supplies by road and officials estimated the death toll could now be more than 54,000. Eight international medical teams took off from Muzaffarabad to outlying villages, as fears grew for millions of survivors without healthcare and shelter in the isolated mountains of Kashmir. U.S. diplomat Geoffrey Krassy estimated that about one-fifth of populated areas had yet to be reached. "There are serious patients with infected wounds and gangrene," said Sebastian Nouak of the International Committee of the Red Cross, after a team of its doctors landed in Chekar, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) east of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's part of the divided Himalayan region. He said about 200 people in the town had not received any medical help since the 7.6 magnitude quake struck on Oct. 8, and landing choppers there was dangerous because desperate villagers rushed into the landing area.
