Quake toll rises to 18,000 in worst- hit Kashmir
Lahore (AsiaNews/Agencies) - A Pakistani military spokesman says more than 18,000 people have been killed in the huge earthquake that shook south Asia yesterday. Striking out from the forest clad mountains of Pakistani Kashmir near the border with India, the quake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale - was the strongest to hit south Asia in a century.
Major-General Shaukat Sultan said that at least 18,000 people were killed and about 41,000 people were injured in Pakistan in the quake. The hardest-hit areas have been the Pakistani-controlled zone of Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province. Military officials in the Indian-controlled area of Kashmir also say at least 300 people have been killed in that region. "There are many villages that have been wiped off the face of this earth," Sultan said. He added many areas had not been reached because landslides triggered by the quake had wiped out roads.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the tremor occurred at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). It struck about 95 km (60 miles) northeast of Islamabad and was felt across the subcontinent, shaking buildings in the Afghan, Indian and Bangladeshi capitals. The first quake was followed over the next 18 hours by more than 20 aftershocks with magnitudes of between 4.5 and 6.3.
Some 400 children were killed at two schools in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. Damage in Pakistani Kashmir's main city, Muzaffarabad, was believed to be severe. "Indications are that almost 50 percent of the homes have been destroyed," Prime Minister Shaukat said, referring to Muzaffarabad and neighbouring towns. Private TV reported that some of Muzaffarabad's main buildings, including a military hospital, had been destroyed, and that injured people were lying in the courtyard of the one working hospital waiting for attention from doctors struggling to cope. A military spokesman said 215 Pakistani soldiers were killed in the hardest-hit areas.
Indian Kashmir was also battered by the earthquake. Police said more than 300 people had been killed and hundreds injured. Half of the Indian deaths were in Uri, the last big town on the road connecting the two sides of the violence-scarred region. Landslides blocked the 300-km (190-mile) road that connects Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, to the rest of India to the south. The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road linking Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, reopened to traffic this year for the first time in nearly 60 years, was also blocked
Ghulam Rashool, an official at the Pakistan Meteorological Department, said it was the strongest earthquake in South Asia since the 1905 Kangra earthquake that killed 20,000 people in India's Madhya Pradesh state. In the Pakistani capital Islamabad, 82 survivors were recovered from two multi-storey apartment blocks that were reduced to rubble. Government officials said among the victims, rescuers also found bodies of at least three foreigners, an Egyptian and two Japanese.
Pakistani Prime minister Shaukat Aziz said that his country cannot cope with the great disaster and asked for international help. Pledges of aid from around the world came within hours. President George W. Bush said U.S. aid was on the way and Britain said it was sending search and rescue experts, sniffer dogs and aid workers. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan sent condolences to Pakistan, and a U.N. Disaster and Coordination Team in Geneva was on standby to be deployed. Oxfam and other aid agencies planned to coordinate their response with the United Nations. Turkey, which has suffered major earthquakes in the past, said it had sent two military planes carrying aid, doctors and rescue workers. Japan sent a team of 49 aid workers. In a further sign of easing tension between India and Pakistan, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to offer assistance.
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18/06/2018 09:23
01/12/2017 09:16
