Survivors of the South Asian earthquake marked the New Year by clearing rubble from a school where 15 girls perished.

Five hours before the chimes of Big Ben heralded 2006 in the UK, thousands of miles away in the quake-ravaged city of Muzaffarabad, people were seeing out a year blighted by death and devastation.

Urologist Dr Mohsin Shakil, who returned to the region from an exchange programme at Bradford Royal Infirmary when the tragedy struck, joined volunteers on New Year's Eve to mark the start of a new chapter in the rebuilding programme.

"The school was completely destroyed," said Dr Shakil, who is based at Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences in Muzaffarabad.

"Fifteen girls lost their lives and many more were badly injured. The same people who rescued those girls are now there to remove the rubble and to rebuild the school."

There were no fireworks or cheers at the site of the school where the walls and roof had caved in on October 8 2005 - but the new year holds hope.

"People were optimistic and confident because of the help from people in the UK and from local people," said Dr Shakil.

"Everyone was excited and is determined to rebuild. We are going to rebuild Muzaffarabad ourselves and move from victims to active survivors.

"The buildings in Muzaffarabad collapsed so badly that there's no way in and out of the old part of the city.

"Most of the people from Muzaffarabad have gone to Islamabad and have no place to come back to. We want to remove the rubble so people can come back into the city."

Dr Shakil had been working at Bradford Royal Infirmary for one month of a three-month cultural exchange from Kashmir when the tragedy struck.

The 44-year-old surgeon, who specialises in urology, has helped hundreds of people in Muzaffarabad which was at the heart of the 7.6 Richter scale earthquake.

Almost three months after the earthquake tore through Azad Kashmir and Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, survivors are now under threat from hypothermia and pneumonia as they struggle to keep warm in ice-cold temperatures in the tents which have become their homes.

"It's very cold in Muzaffarabad," said Dr Shakil. "It started snowing one night this week at midnight and carried on until the morning.

"The snow did not settle but washed away with the rain and a few of the camps were flooded with water.

"Water was coming into people's tents. The scale of the devastation due to the snow and rain has still not been totally calculated.

"In the city people have access to warm clothing and heaters but we don't know what's going on in the villages.

"I spent a night in one of the tents to record the temperature and at 2am it was seven degrees centigrade with a heater.

"I did not dare to go outside of the tent because it was so cold."