IMRAN KHAN, PAKISTANI OPPOSITION MP: Well I'm near the epicentre, about one hour's drive from where the - which was the epicentre of the earthquake which is a place called Balakot and today I'm going to another area where there is even more devastation.

GEORGE NEGUS: What's your reaction to what you've seen and what you know has happened?

IMRAN KHAN: Let me first say, George, you know, when I set out I'd already offered the government my help, despite being one of the greatest opponents of General Musharraf, a military dictator. I'd already offered him my help, that if there's any way as a major fundraiser in this country if there was anything I could do.

But you know when I arrived here and when I went and visited all the areas, what is shocking is that there is hardly any government presence and what is incredible is the response of the people in this country because we have seen the whole roads have been blocked by people bringing stuff, food stuff and you know, whatever they could get.

I mean I saw little cars people fitting in their car and just stuffing the car up with things to get to these people. On one side that was the most positive thing. On the other side was this incredible situation where there's no government presence there.

GEORGE NEGUS: How do you explain that? Why is it the government is, for instance, as ordinary as you're suggesting?

IMRAN KHAN: Well, I think they've just been completely taken by surprise by the scale of the disaster. There's no emergency services, there's no crisis management and I think that to mobilise the army really that's what should have been mobilised immediately. I think it's just taking them quite a long time.
Meanwhile, there's anger growing in the whole area, there's a great amount of anger because people are sitting outside in the open, they cannot live in the houses, there's no tents, it's extremely cold at night here and so obviously the people expected a bit more from the government.

In Islamabad, for instance, you know there was only one building that collapsed and any services that arrive -- emergency services arrived almost two to three hours after the accident. But you know, it's much worse, George, in these areas because of the, you know, the children are in the open, there's a risk of hypothermia now. So far the government presence is absent.

Secondly, you know at least what they could do is give direction to people, where to send their - what sort of food stuff to send or what sort of - what is needed because at the moment what's happening is people are just rushing with everything and when they get there they realise that some - for instance they've bought mineral water here.
Now they have fresh mountain streams you don't need water here. But this is where the government needed to give direction. A huge surge of people wanting to do something and not knowing what to do.

GEORGE NEGUS: Today the Indians have said, the prime minister has offered whatever aid assistance is required. Do you think the government of Pakistan will respond positively to that and should it?

IMRAN KHAN: Obviously they should. We don't even know - I reckon it's close to 100,000 in the end, the death toll, because you know while I was there yesterday I was getting calls of people coming to see me saying that they've just come from a certain village and no-one has even been there and the whole - there's still people buried under the rubble.

So I don't think people fully realise still when you go to talk about 30 to 40,000. I think it's going to be closer to 100,000 once, you know, once they reach all the areas.
So obviously they should get any little aid they can because it's nothing to do with politics.

GEORGE NEGUS: Being there on the spot, what do you think the Pakistani government should be doing that it's not doing or hasn't done up until this point?

IMRAN KHAN: Well, number one they should give direction, you know. All the people who want to help, I mean students, doctors, everyone who wants to help, at the moment they're still not clear what sort of help, specifically in which area they should help.
For instance, the most urgently needed things are now tents and blankets because people need shelter right now otherwise we're going to have far more people dying from hypothermia, that's the most important thing.

Specifically orthopaedic surgeons because a lot of people have had their limbs broken and this is going to turn into infection and other problems and food stuffs. They basically need, you know, durables like biscuits and stuff like that which can endure - food gets bad after a while, it won't keep, whereas biscuits will keep.

GEORGE NEGUS: It sounds to me like you're saying the government is failing to coordinate the relief effort, it's all been a bit of a shambles?

IMRAN KHAN: That's it, there's no coordination. As I said, look, George, no-one expected the government to cope with this huge disaster, I mean sit a huge disaster. But what we expected was direction, leadership and secondly, you know, the army needed to be in the field by now.
But somehow it's the fifth day now and I think the army mobilisation is not there.

GEORGE NEGUS: From countries like our own, do you need money or actual aid or what, equipment, expertise or the like?

IMRAN KHAN: You know what we really needed unfortunately the time has gone, we needed people to, you know, with specialised knowledge of how to get people out of the collapsed buildings because, you know, until yesterday even certainly as we were saying there were still people alive or you could hear them.
I think that's what we needed most of all and that's, you know, when you talk to the people that's what they'll complain the most about, that there was no help from the government in trying to get people out and there was schoolchildren, you know, schoolchildren in the rubble and there was nothing people could do because they didn't have the equipment.

GEORGE NEGUS: We'll have to leave it there but good to talk to you. It's a shame we're talking under such horrible circumstances.

IMRAN KHAN: Thanks, George