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Quake kills more than 3,000 in South Asia
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-09 06:18
A huge earthquake triggered landslides, toppled an apartment building and
flattened villages of mud-brick homes Saturday, killing more than 3,000 people
across a mountainous swath touching Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
An aerial view of a
collapse building in Islamabad. A huge earthquake measuring at least 7.6
on the Richter Scale has shaken northern Pakistan and India, causing
substantial damage and warnings of many casualties.
[AFP] |
The casualty toll from the 7.6-magnitude tremor was rising early Sunday as
rescuers struggled to dig people from the wreckage, their work made more
difficult as rain and hail turned dirt and debris into sticky muck. The worst
damage was in Pakistan, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school
and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.
For hours, aftershocks rattled an area stretching from Afghanistan across
northern Pakistan into India's portion of the disputed Himalayan region of
Kashmir. Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing tremors could cause
more damage.
The earthquake, which struck just before 9 a.m., caused buildings to sway for
about a minute in the capitals of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, an area some
625 miles across. Panicked people ran from homes and offices, and communications
were cut to many areas.
Most of the devastation occurred in the mountains of northern Pakistan. The
U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of
the capital, Islamabad, in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir.
"It is a national tragedy," said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief
army spokesman. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."
In Mansehra, a shopowner named Haji Fazal Ilahi stood vigil over the body of
his 14-year-old daughter, which lay under a sheet on a hospital mattress. He
said his wife, another daughter and a brother also died when the family's house
fell.
"I could see rocks and homes tumbling down the mountains," said Ilahi, who
was driving to his village of Garlat when the quake struck. "When I reached my
village, there was nothing left of my home."
India's government offered condolences and assistance to Pakistan, a longtime
rival with which it has been pursuing peace efforts after fighting three wars
since independence from British rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.
"While parts of India have also suffered from this unexpected natural
disaster, we are prepared to extend any assistance with rescue and relief which
you may deem appropriate," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a
message to Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
India reported at least 250 people killed and 800 injured when the quake
collapsed 2,700 houses and other buildings in Jammu-Kashmir state. Most of the
deaths occurred in the border towns of Uri, Tangdar and Punch and in the city of
Srinagar, said B.B. Vyas, the state's divisional commissioner.
Telephone lines were down. Some bridges developed cracks, but traffic was
reported to be passing over them.
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