A 6.1-magnitude earthquake jolted parts of the South Asian region from Kabul to New Delhi on Wednesday, killing a child in Pakistan and forcing thousands of people to flee their homes in panic, officials said.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck at the depth of 191.2 km in the Hindukush mountainous region of Afghanistan, which borders the Pakistani town of Chitral.
The Pakistani meteorological department said that the quake’s magnitude was 6.2.
At least one child was killed and eight people were wounded when the roofs of several houses collapsed in the
south-western Pakistani province of Balochistan, according to Asmat Ullah from the provincial disaster
management agency.
The authorities are in the process of assessing the losses, Ullah said, adding that it might take the rescue
agencies hours to reach some of the remote areas.
Local official Tauseefur Rehman told dpa that four schoolgirls were injured in a stampede that followed in the north-western city of Peshawar.
People in the capital Islamabad and other parts of the country ran out of their houses, shops and offices in panic after the earthquake struck around lunchtime.
“It was scary. We all ran out. We thought roofs and walls are going to fall on us,” said Adeel Ahmed from the northern town of Balakot, where a major earthquake in 2005 killed 80,000 people in the worst disaster ever in Pakistan’s history.
In Afghanistan, a spokesman for the disaster management agency said officials were assessing the damage, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
It might be difficult for the authorities to reach outlying regions during the harsh winter after days of snowfall, especially in the province of Badakhshan, where the epicentre lies. (dpa/NAN)
