Forty killed as quake brings homes crashing down in Pakistani province

A MAJOR earthquake has struck south-western Pakistan killing up to 40 people and sending others fleeing into the streets, praying for their lives as buildings swayed.

Baluchistan province in south west Pakistan is the country’s largest but also the least populated.

At least two of the dead were killed when more than two dozen houses collapsed in villages of Awaran district, said the district’s deputy commissioner Abdur Rasheed. He said rescue teams have been dispatched to the
area.

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The US Geological Survey, based in Colorado, reported the quake as magnitude 7.8.

It struck in a remote area of Baluchistan with little population, said the head of Pakistan’s Earthquake Centre, Zahid Rafi, who has warned of possible aftershocks.

The chief spokesman for the country’s National Disaster Management Authority, Mirza Kamran Zia, says most of the casualties occurred when houses collapsed on people inside.

The quake was felt as far away as New Delhi, in India, and also rocked buildings in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, along the Arabian Sea.

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People in the city’s tall office buildings rushed into the streets following the tremor.

“I was working on my computer in the office. Suddenly I felt
tremors. My table and computer started shaking. I thought I am feeling dizziness but soon realised they were tremors,” said one Karachi resident, Mohammad Taimur.

Residents in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, also fled their homes and offices in panic.

Matiullah Khan, a cell phone vendor in Quetta, said he was in his shop handling a customer when the cabinet and shelves started to shake.

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“I along with customers rushed out to the main street...thousands of people were standing, many in fear and reciting Quranic verses,” he said, referring to Islam’s holy book, the Quran.

Baluchistan and neighbouring Iran are prone to earthquakes.

A magnitude 7.8, which was centred just across the border in Iran, killed at least 35 people in Pakistan last April.

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