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Over 160 die in Pakistan quake

— Photo: AFP

Reduced to dust: Earthquake survivors walk past the debris of collapsed houses in Ziarat, 50 km north of Quetta, on Wednesday.

ZIARAT (Pakistan): A strong earthquake struck before dawn on Wednesday in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 160-170 people, injuring scores more and leaving an estimated 15,000 homeless, said officials.

The toll could rise as rescuers dig for survivors in a remote valley in Balochistan, where the magnitude-6.4 quake struck. Worst-hit was the hilltop resort of Ziarat and eight surrounding villages, where hundreds of mud-brick and timber houses were destroyed, said officials. Some were buried in landslips triggered by the quake. “There is great destruction,” said Ziarat Mayor Dilawar Kakar. “Not a single house is intact,” he added.

Aftershocks rattled the area throughout Wednesday, including one estimated at magnitude-6.2 in the afternoon. There were no reports additional casualties or damage. Mr. Kakar said the death toll from the quake was 160 to 170, with 375 injured. Around 15,000 people were made homeless, he said.

He appealed to “the whole world” for help, but the head of Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority said an international relief effort would not likely be necessary. In the village of Sohi, AP Television News filmed bodies of 17 people killed in one collapsed house and 12 from another. Distraught residents were digging a mass grave in which to bury them.

“We can’t dig separate graves for each of them, as the number of deaths is high and still people are searching in the rubble of many other homes,” said Shamsullah Khan, a village elder. Other survivors sat stunned in the open, with little more than the clothes in which they had been sleeping.

Hospitals in the nearby town of Kawas and the provincial capital Quetta, 80 km away, were flooded with the dead and injured. One patient, Raz Mohammed, said he was awoken by the sound of his children crying before he felt a jolt. “I rushed toward them but the roof of my own room collapsed and the main iron support hit me,” he said told in Quetta Civil Hospital. “That thing broke my back and I am in severe pain but thank God my children and relatives are safe,” he added.

With some roads blocked by landslides, officials said the military was ferrying troops and medical teams on six helicopters to villagers in the quake zone. Officials said they were distributing tents, blankets and food packages and sending in earth-moving equipment to help dig mass graves.

Farooq Ahmad Khan, head of the disaster authority, said 2,000 houses had been destroyed and that teams were scrambling to erect shelters for 2,500 to 3,000 people in an area where the temperature was forecast to plunge to about freezing overnight. The main quake struck at 5:10 a.m. local time and had a preliminary magnitude of 6.4, reported the U.S. Geological Survey.

Pakistan is prone to violent seismic upheavals. Wednesday’s quake was the deadliest since a magnitude-7.6 quake devastated Kashmir and northern Pakistan in October 2005, killing about 80,000 people and leaving thousands homeless. A temblor of magnitude 7.5 that hit Quetta in 1935 killed more than 30,000 people.

Ziarat, a hilltop resort ringed with juniper forests, has long attracted summer visitors. British officials retreated there from Quetta when the area was part of British India. Pakistanis flock to the former residence of Pakistan’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and the shrine of a revered saint. — AP

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