Provincial official puts death toll from magnitude 7.7 quake in Awaran district in Baluchistan at 210, with 375 people injured
Associated Press in Quetta
- theguardian.com, Wednesday 25 September 2013 03.06 EDT
The
rubble of a house after the magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck in Awaran
district, Baluchistan province, Pakistan. Photograph:
Stringer/Pakistan/Reuters
Rescuers are struggling to help
thousands of people injured and left homeless after their houses
collapsed in a massive earthquake in south-western
Pakistan as the death toll rose to 210, officials said.
The
magnitude 7.7 quake struck in the remote district of Awaran in
Pakistan's Baluchistan province on Tuesday afternoon. Such a quake is
considered major, capable of widespread and heavy damage.
The tremors were felt as far away as New Delhi, the Indian capital, some 740 miles (1,200km) away.
A
provincial official, Zahid bin Maqsood, put the death toll at 210 and
said 375 people had been injured, while a spokesman for the provincial
government, Jan Mohammad Bulaidi, put the death toll at 216 – the
conflicting figures likely to be due to the difficulty in contacting
local officials and people in the remote region.
In the densely
populated city of Karachi on the Arabian Sea and Quetta, the capital of
Baluchistan province, people ran into the streets in panic when the
quake it, praying for their lives.-
Read More Here
*************************************************************
Pakistanis struggle for food, shelter after quake
AP
Quetta, Pakistan, September 26, 2013
First Published: 10:26 IST(26/9/2013)
Last Updated: 15:44 IST(26/9/2013)
Hungry
survivors dug through rubble to find food and thousands slept under the
open sky or in makeshift shelters for a second night as the death toll
from Pakistan's massive earthquake rose to 348 on Thursday.
Rescuers battled to reach remote areas of the impoverished region in
the wake of Tuesday's magnitude 7.7 quake in southwestern Baluchistan province.
The quake had flattened wide swathes of Awaran district where it was centered, leaving much of the population homeless.
The
spokesman for the provincial government, Jan Mohammad Bulaidi, said 348
people have been confirmed dead so far and 552 people had been injured.
"We need more tents, more medicine and more food," Bulaidi said earlier.
In
the village of Dalbadi, almost all of the 300 mud-brick homes were
destroyed. Noor Ahmad said he was working when the quake struck and
rushed home to find his house leveled and his wife and son dead.
"I'm broken," he said. "I have lost my family."
Doctors
in the village treated some of the injured, but due to a scarcity of
medicine and staff, they were mostly seen comforting the survivors.
Awaran
district is one of the poorest in the country's most impoverished
province. Many people use four-wheel-drive vehicles and camels to
traverse the rough terrain.
Read More Here
*************************************************************
Big Pond 
Pakistan earthquake toll reaches 328
Thursday, September 26, 2013 » 06:32am
Desperate
villagers in southwest Pakistan are clawing through the wreckage of
their ruined homes, a day after a huge earthquake struck, killing more
than 300 people.
The 7.7-magnitude quake hit on Tuesday afternoon in Baluchistan province's remote and Awaran district.
At
least 328 people have been confirmed dead and more than 450 injured,
according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) and the
Baluchistan government.
In the village of Dalbedi, the earthquake
- Pakistan's deadliest since the devastating Kashmir quake of 2005,
which killed 73,000 - flattened some 250 houses.
Bewildered
villagers dug with their hands through the rubble of their mud houses in
Dalbedi to retrieve what was left of their meagre possessions.
Their simple houses destroyed, they used rags, old clothes, sheets and tree branches to shelter their families from the sun.
Farmer Noor Ahmed, 45, said the tremors lasted for two minutes and turned buildings in the village into piles of mud.
'We
have lost everything, even our food is now buried under mud, and water
from underground channels is now undrinkable because of excessive mud in
it due to the earthquake,' he told AFP.
Read More Here
*************************************************************
