These children survived the South Asian earthquake - but it has cost them their limbs.

Thousands of children like them are waking up in hospitals across the disaster-struck region without arms and legs - the price they have paid for living through the one of the worst natural disasters of modern times.

Medics in hospitals like Holy Family in Rawalpindi - where funds raised by Bradford people are paying for medication and where Bradford-based charity Global Promise has a team of 12 volunteers - have been left no option in some cases but to amputate legs and arms to save children's lives.

Some children have been more fortunate thanks to money raised thousands of miles away in Bradford.

Bradford businessman Mohammad Sabir has been in the region since he was caught up in the quake to help the relief effort and buy medical supplies with money raised through the Bradford-based JANNAT Welfare International Trust.

The 65-year-old chairman of Shipley-based Aagrah restaurant chain, said: "I went to a big hospital in Islamabad where there were so many injured people. The patients had badly swollen wounds and infections. The smell was horrible.

"There were seven children in intensive care aged about seven and eight. The doctors said that in a few days they would have to cut off their feet and hands. I asked them to wait.

"We gave them money from Bradford for medicine. The medicine it bought saved them and meant they did not need to have parts of their bodies amputated."

Mr Sabir has worked around the clock since the earthquake struck to secure supplies of medicine for patients across the region.

More than £32,000 has been raised through JANNAT Welfare International Trust, which is used to buy what is needed on the spot.

But more than two weeks after the earthquake changed these children's lives for ever, money is still desperately needed for the relief operation alone.

Professor Mohammad Umar, who is a professor of medicine at Rawalpindi Medical College and works at Holy Family, has already warned that hospitals will continue treating hundreds of earthquake victims a day for the next few months.

According to the latest figures from the Pakistan High Commission in London, the earthquake has left 53,000 people dead and 75,000 injured.

Aid workers are now in a race against time to find shelter for hundreds of thousands of homeless people as the freezing temperatures of Winter set in against a back-drop of utter devastation and terrifying aftershocks.

"Shelter is a big problem," said Mr Sabir. "I have had calls from Bagh and Muzaffarabad. They need tents and blankets but we cannot buy them anywhere. There is nothing here.

"It's three districts the size of an area from Manchester to Birmingham. It's very hilly, there are landslides and it's wet. People who have no homes or tents are just outside. It's very cold at night. Even with tents and shelter people may only survive a few months.

"We still need money. The problem with tents is that they are temporary. People still need a house. Without a tent some people will die from the cold."