THE full horror of the Indian earthquake began to emerge last night as officials revealed that up to 125,000 people are missing.

In what appears to be turning into a disaster of catastrophic proportions, the appalling death toll is now dawning on the rescue teams still frantically battling to save lives among the ruins of the western state of Gujarat.

Up to 30,000 are feared dead in the city of Bhuj alone, the hardest-hit area.

And although many of the missing may have simply left the immediate area in the aftermath of the disaster, already classed as India's worst in 50 years, others are feared to be entombed beneath the rubble of their homes.

K N Mahure, a fire brigade commander in charge of rescue efforts in Bhuj, said: "There may be 20,000 to 30,000 dead in Bhuj alone. But we are still finding people alive."

Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, the state's top official, said about 125,000 people were "not accounted for".

Haren Pandya, Gujarat's home minister, said 6,000 people were confirmed killed in Friday's quake and gave a less pessimistic prediction of at least 10,000 dead. More than 14,500 people have been injured.

British aid workers arrived in the region yesterday and immediately joined the rescue effort, pulling one survivor from the rubble within hours.

Last night, British rescuers pulled a woman and her son alive from the rubble in Bhuj.

The seven-year-old boy was rescued from the wreckage of a collapsed tower block by members of the UK Fire Service.

A few hours later his 28-year-old mother was rescued from under the same building.

A spokeswoman for the Department for International Development said they were the second and third people to be rescued by the 69-strong British team who were last night trying to rescue a fourth person.

International rescue team leader Ray Gray, from Selby, North Yorkshire, said: "There are a lot of people here sleeping in the streets as they can't go back into the buildings.

"The after-shocks have got more frequent as the day has gone on. We have just had three in the last hour, some quite big.

"We try to prop up debris but aftershocks could bring the whole building down.

"Time is something these people don't have so we are trying to work flat out until we are too tired."

Medical student Matthew Cartwright-Terry, 25, from Thirsk, North Yorkshire, was caught up in the quake, but managed to send a message home to his family on Saturday.

The bus he was on suddenly started weaving across the road. He said: "I realised there were thousands of people spilling out onto the streets.

"I saw apartment blocks that had just folded - they were no more than piles of rubble."

It emerged yesterday that a British doctor, Ashok Nathwani, is among the dead. He became trapped in a building in the city of Ahmedabad.

Dr Nathwani, a consultant community paediatrician in Hampshire, had gone to India with his father to scatter his mother's ashes.

A spokeswoman for the Portsmouth Health Care NHS Trust said: "It is awful. He was lovely man and he is going to be really missed he had such a way with the kids."

Dr Nathwani's wife flew to India on Saturday night with one of her sons after hearing that her husband was missing.

Hari Shukla, former director of the Tyne and Wear Racial Equality Council, said there were up to 60 Gujurati families living in the North-East.

"We are a very close community in the North-East and we have all been desperately trying to contact our families over there," he said. "We have been terribly worried.

"It has taken two days for news to come through but it has been good. They are telling us they are alive."

The Foreign Office has issued two helpline numbers - 020 7008 0000 and 020 7839 1010 - for people worried about relatives.

Quake terror - Page 2