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Pakistan quake kills 327, death toll likely to rise
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Rescuers struggled yesterday to help thousands of people injured and left homeless after their houses collapsed in a major earthquake in southwestern Pakistan, as the death toll from the massive tremor on Tuesday rose to at least 327.
The earth moved with enough force to create a small island visible off the southern coast after the magnitude 7.7 quake struck in the remote district of Awaran in Baluchistan province Tuesday.
At least 446 people were also injured in the quake, said the head of the National Disaster Management Authority, Major General Muhammad Saeed Aleem.
The quake flattened wide swathes of Awaran. Most of the victims were killed when their houses collapsed.
In the village of Dalbadi, Noor Ahmad said he was working when the quake struck but rushed home, only to find his house leveled and his wife and son dead.
“I’m broken. I have lost my family,” he said.
Dalbadi was completely flattened. No one knew how many people the quake had killed.
Men, women and children were sitting in makeshift shelters. Doctors were treating people, but due to a scarcity of medicine and staff, were mostly seen comforting residents.
The remoteness of the area and the lack of infrastructure have hampered relief efforts.
“We’re finding it very difficult to reach affected remote areas,” said a spokesman for the provincial government. “We need more tents, medicine and food.”
He described a horrific scene of people who lost limbs and will need to be sent to hospitals in major cities of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, and Karachi.
The Pakistani military said it had rushed almost 1,000 troops to the area and was sending helicopters. A convoy of 60 Pakistani army trucks left Karachi yesterday.
Pakistani forces have evacuated 174 people from various villages around Awaran to the district hospital, the military said in a statement.
Local officials said they were sending doctors, food and 1,000 tents as strong aftershocks continued to shake the region.
Small island
Pakistani officials were investigating a small island that appeared off the coast after the quake, apparently the result of earth pushed to the surface.
A Pakistani navy team reached the island by midday yesterday, navy geologist Mohammed Danish told the country’s Geo Television. He said the mass was about 18 meters high, 30 meters long and 76 meters wide.
Danish warned residents not to try to visit the island as gasses are still emitting.
But dozens of people had already visited the island, said the deputy commissioner of Gwadar district, Tufail Baloch, who traveled by boat himself to the island yesterday morning.
He said the island smelled of gas which caught fire when people lit cigarettes.
Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest province but also the least populated and most impoverished.
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