Pakistan earthquake kills hundreds as new island formed
More than 300 people were killed when a powerful earthquake struck a remote part of western Pakistan. The quake also caused a mountain-like island to be formed in the Arabian Sea.
The earthquake, measuring 7.7 on the richter scale, struck Baluchistan, a huge quake-prone province of deserts and rugged mountains, and was felt across South Asia.
Tremors were felt as far away as the Indian capital of New Delhi, hundreds of kilometres to the east, where buildings shook, as well as the sprawling port city of Karachi in Pakistan.
We have started to bury the dead – Pakistani official
It destroyed houses and cut communications with the worst affected district of Awaran, and was so powerful that it caused a small island to emerge from the sea just off the Pakistani coastline in the Arabian Sea.
Pakistan’s army airlifted hundreds of soldiers to help with the aftermath of the worst earthquake in the South Asian country since 2005 when about 75,000 people were killed in the north.
“We have started to bury the dead,” said Abdul Rasheed Gogazai, the deputy commissioner of Awaran, a town of 200,000.
“Two hundred and eighty five bodies have so far been recovered in the Awaran district.
“And 42 bodies were found in the neighbouring Kech district,” he added.
Some officials said the death toll was likely to rise as emergency workers progressed deeper into the mountains to assess the damage.
New island
Mohammad Shabir, a journalist, described scenes of grief and chaos in villages, saying survivors were digging rows of graves and picking through the debris.
“As far as the human eye can see, all the houses here have been flattened,” the journalist said.
The earthquake struck Pakistan at a time when the country was still mourning the deaths of more than 80 Christians in a suicide bomb attack on an Anglican church in the city of Peshawar on Sunday.
To the south, on the beach near Gwadar port, crowds of bewildered residents gathered to witness the rare phenomenon of the island that the quake forced out of the sea (see video below).
Officials said scores of mud houses were destroyed by aftershocks in the thinly populated mountainous area near the quake epicenter in Baluchistan, a huge barren province of deserts and rugged mountains.