Hunger forcing some victims of Pakistan's earthquake to turn to crime to feed themselves

Along a line of broken storefronts, young men burrow into the rubble, scavenging cooking oil, rice and biscuits. Elsewhere, angry grocers wielding big sticks beat back looters seeking a different quarry: flour.

In a prosperous district of Muzaffarabad, where more than 11,000 people are believed to have died, the hunt for food turned ugly Monday.

Dozens of men, young and old, clashed with grocery shop owners, throwing stones and trading blows. The looters appeared to come off worse in the fighting and later fled. Some of them were bleeding from head wounds, the AP reports.

Across the street, others pilfered flour from undefended shops. Saturday's magnitude-7.6 quake has wrecked this city of 600,000, the capital of Pakistan's portion of the Himalayan region of Kashmir.

There is no electricity or running water, and the relief effort has scarcely started to help the legions of homeless.

Many residents are nursing injuries and have not had a square meal in three days. A.M.