Earthquake kills 160 in Pak, higher toll feared

Karachi: Pakistani rescuers have pulled 160 bodies from the rubble of mud-walled homes in Baluchistan province after a powerful earthquake hit the area on Wednesday, a district government official said.

"Our rescuers are still working but we've recovered 160 bodies from various villages in Ziarat," said the district's chief administrator, Dilawar Khan.

"Eight villages in Ziarat have been badly affected and there are still many areas which have not yet been reached," Provincial Revenue Minister Zamrak Khan said.

The US Geological Survey said a 6.4 magnitude quake hit 60 km (40 miles) northeast of the city of Quetta before dawn.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department put the magnitude at 6.5 and said the quake struck at 5.10 am (2310 GMT).

Earlier, Sohail-ur-Rehman, a top district administration official in Baluchistan province told Dawn Television by telephone from Wam district that he expected the toll to rise.

Officials in Ziarat district, 70 km (45 miles) northeast of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, said many houses collapsed in the quake and some were destroyed in landslides trigged by the quake.

"Hundreds of mud houses have collapsed. We are using whatever resources we have to help the people and have asked for help from the provincial government," said Ziarat district chief Dilawar Khan.

"There is a large number of injured people but we don't have an exact figure," he said.

Khan said people in the worst-hit areas had been rescued but teams had yet to reach some remote places in mountains above the Ziarat valley.

Ziarat district has a population of about 50,000. Its scenic valley is a picnic spot.

Five people had been killed in neighbouring Pishin district, to the north of Quetta, district government officials said.

"We were fast asleep when the tremor struck. We grabbed the children and ran outside. The earth continued shaking for more than a minute," said Habibullah, a resident of Pishin.

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He said no one had been hurt in his neighbourhood.

Panic

District government officials and hospital staff in the provincial capital, Quetta, said scores of people had been injured, most when mud walls collapsed or in the panic when people rushed from their homes.

The Meteorological Department said two tremors had struck before dawn, the second one bigger than the first.

Quetta resident Amjad Hussain said there had been panic in the city.

"There were two tremors, the second one was serious and people rushed out of their houses," Hussain said.

Quetta was largely destroyed and about 30,000 people were killed in a severe earthquake in 1935.

The region's worst earthquake was in October 2005 when about 75,000 people were killed, most of them in mountainous northern Pakistan, in a 7.6 magnitude quake.

Large parts of south Asia are seismically active because a plate known as the Indian plate is pushing north into the Eurasian plate.

Baluchistan is Pakistan's largest province but its most thinly populated. It has the country's biggest reserves of natural gas but there were no reports of damage to gas facilities.