Two children with cholera were brought Thursday to a Japanese Red Cross medical tent in this mountain town Thursday, doctors said, raising fears that the grim conditions among the homeless and injured survivors of the Oct. 8 earthquake were deteriorating further as winter sets in.

Engineers had just begun to dig out the bodies of an estimated 100 children who were crushed when their school building, just meters away from the medical center, collapsed on that morning. They brought out six bodies Wednesday night.

To compound the problems, an American helicopter was the target of a suspected missile attack on Tuesday near this town in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, raising concerns that Kashmiri militants, many of whom are Islamic radicals, were turning against the American military.

Pakistani officials denied the report, saying that engineers were blasting to clear landslides from the road near Chinari and that was the explosion the U.S. crew member thought was an attack. But American officials remained cautious in their assessment of the incident, saying that the Chinook crew members were experienced after months of combat time in Afghanistan.

“People’s views are mixed. Some are grateful to the foreigners and the American for all the aid. But some are angry and criticize them and the government for not helping enough,” said Zahir, a student from Karachi who was working with his father’s military engineering unit to dig the dead children out of the primary school.

Eikenberry, who commands the 900-member disaster assistance force in Pakistan as well as the 20,000 coalition troops in Afghanistan, made a one-day visit from his Afghan headquarters in Kabul to inspect the American operation in the earthquake zone and to meet with Pakistan military commanders in the capital of Islamabad. The U.S. relief operation is becoming increasingly important and the United Nations warned that a shortfall of donations was going to endanger lives.

I wonder if the natural and human-made accumulation of disasters worldwide continues apace, which will politicians choose as highest priority? That is, if the budgets begin to conflict with the requirements for war and politics as usual.