Enlarge imageBy Gul Yousafzai
KARACHI (Reuters) - At least 80 people were killed when a powerful earthquake struck southwest Pakistan on Wednesday bringing down hundreds of mud-walled houses, and the death toll was expected to rise, a district government official said.
The U.S. 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 a.m. (11:10 p.m. British time).
The epicentre was near the scenic valley of Ziarat, one of the main tourist spots in Baluchistan province.
"About four villages were severely hit. Over 90 percent of houses have been destroyed and some people are still trapped under the debris," said Sohail-ur-Rehman, a top district administration official in Baluchistan.
Advertisement starts
Advertisement ends
"In two villages, Wam and Warchu, we have reports of 80 dead but the toll is bound to be higher as we haven't been able to reach the other two villages," Rehman told Reuters by telephone. Army helicopters had arrived to help with the rescue, he said.
Officials in the hilly Ziarat district, 70 km (45 miles) northeast of the provincial capital, Quetta, said many houses had collapsed and some had been 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."
Teams had yet to reach some remote places in mountains above the Ziarat valley, he said. Ziarat district has a population of about 50,000.
PANIC
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.
He said no one had been hurt in his neighbourhood which was being hit by aftershocks.
The head of a national disaster management team, Farooq Ahmed Khan, said about 300 rescue workers had reached Ziarat. The army was sending a field hospital while tents, blankets and clothing were also being flown in.
Officials and hospital staff 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 in a severe earthquake in 1935 which killed about 30,000 people.
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.
(Additional reporting by Saeed Ali Achakzai and Zeeshan Haider; writing by Robert Birsel; editing by Roger Crabb)
