Pakistan earthquake: At least 80 dead
Dozens have been forced out of their homes after a strong earthquake hit villages in Pakistan Photo: AFP/GETTY
The death toll was expected to rise as reports arrived from remote areas of the affected province of Baluchistan, an impoverished area bordering Afghanistan. Some reports said it had reached 100.
"It will be much more," Sohail ur Rahman, a top civilian official in one of the affected districts, told Dawn News TV station.
He said some 500 houses had been destroyed.
Most of the deaths occurred around the hilly town of Ziarat in gas-rich Baluchistan province, police official Abdul Khaleq said.
"We have received reports of heavy casualties, we can't confirm how many," Quetta-based army spokesman Major Shabahat Hussain said. "We have sent an army team there (to Ziarat) in a helicopter."
A woman was also killed in Pishin district near Quetta, police officer Niaz Mohammed said.
Several people were injured in the panic in Quetta, with one person hurting their legs after jumping from a first floor window and three people wounded when people fired guns in the air after the quake, hospital officials said.
Dilawar Khan, major of Ziarat said several houses had collapsed.
The US Geological Survey said a 6.2 magnitude quake hit 70 km (45 miles) northeast of the city of Quetta, not far from the border with Afghanistan, before dawn. The Pakistan Meteorological Department put the magnitude at 6.1 and said the quake struck at 5.10 a.m. (2310 GMT).
"There were two tremors, the second one was serious and people rushed out of their houses," said Quetta resident Amjad Hussain.
The tremors, which struck at a depth of 10 kilometres, sent people running screaming from their homes in Quetta, according to witnesses in the city.
A city hospital official said 15 people had been brought in with minor injuries, most injured when mud walls collapsed or in the panic when people rushed from their homes.
Quetta was largely destroyed and about 30,000 people were killed in a severe earthquake in 1935.
A 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northwest Pakistan and Kashmir killed 74,000 people and displaced 3.5 million in October 2005.
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Pakistan earthquake: At least 80 dead
Dozens have been forced out of their homes after a strong earthquake hit villages in Pakistan Photo: AFP/GETTY
The death toll was expected to rise as reports arrived from remote areas of the affected province of Baluchistan, an impoverished area bordering Afghanistan. Some reports said it had reached 100.
"It will be much more," Sohail ur Rahman, a top civilian official in one of the affected districts, told Dawn News TV station.
He said some 500 houses had been destroyed.
Most of the deaths occurred around the hilly town of Ziarat in gas-rich Baluchistan province, police official Abdul Khaleq said.
"We have received reports of heavy casualties, we can't confirm how many," Quetta-based army spokesman Major Shabahat Hussain said. "We have sent an army team there (to Ziarat) in a helicopter."
A woman was also killed in Pishin district near Quetta, police officer Niaz Mohammed said.
Several people were injured in the panic in Quetta, with one person hurting their legs after jumping from a first floor window and three people wounded when people fired guns in the air after the quake, hospital officials said.
Dilawar Khan, major of Ziarat said several houses had collapsed.
The US Geological Survey said a 6.2 magnitude quake hit 70 km (45 miles) northeast of the city of Quetta, not far from the border with Afghanistan, before dawn. The Pakistan Meteorological Department put the magnitude at 6.1 and said the quake struck at 5.10 a.m. (2310 GMT).
"There were two tremors, the second one was serious and people rushed out of their houses," said Quetta resident Amjad Hussain.
The tremors, which struck at a depth of 10 kilometres, sent people running screaming from their homes in Quetta, according to witnesses in the city.
A city hospital official said 15 people had been brought in with minor injuries, most injured when mud walls collapsed or in the panic when people rushed from their homes.
Quetta was largely destroyed and about 30,000 people were killed in a severe earthquake in 1935.
A 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northwest Pakistan and Kashmir killed 74,000 people and displaced 3.5 million in October 2005.
