Pakistan quake kills 20, rescuers look for survivors

dpa Islamabad Rescuers in Pakistan clambered through the rubble on Thursday in a frantic search for survivors after an earthquake killed 20 people and fla...

dpa IslamabadRescuers in Pakistan clambered through the rubble on Thursday in a frantic search for survivors after an earthquake killed 20 people and flattened hundreds of houses.Army helicopters, heavy machinery and military and civilian personnel were leading the rescue effort after the pre-dawn quake shook Balochistan, provincial home minister Zia Langov said.Helicopters were going back and forth between Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta and the worst-hit town of Harnai to deliver food, medicines and shelter, the military said.        The military’s Urban Search and Rescue units had also been flown to the area to look for survivors.The 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck at 03:01 am (2201 GMT Wednesday) about 100 kilometres east of Quetta and could be felt in the southern city of Karachi and as far away as the capital Islamabad.At least 300 people were being treated for injuries at local hospitals.Rescuers were trying to reach people trapped under the rubble, local administration chief Suhail Anwar said, adding: “We fear the death toll may go up once our teams reach the far-flung areas.” The earthquake caused the collapse of at least one of the several coal mines in the region, Anwar said. It was not clear if miners were trapped, he added.Videos on social media show people running out of their houses in panic and screaming as buildings shook.The jolt triggered landslides at two locations along the main highway between Quetta and Harnai, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said.Teams from military engineering units were using heavy machinery to remove rocks and clear the roads for ambulances and rescue vehicles to reach the region, the military statement added.Initial assessment suggested more than 200 houses, most made of stones and mud, had been either completely or partially damaged, NDMA’s Syed Shujaat Shah said.A final assessment of the scale of death and destruction was still awaited as some of the remote mountainous areas were still inaccessible as night fell. At least nine people with serious injuries were transported to bigger hospitals in Quetta, Shah said.Power was cut in many parts of the province, disrupting rescue activities and medical treatment at hospitals, Shah added.Earthquakes are frequent occurrences in the region and can cause huge damage.In October 2015, a magnitude-7.5 earthquake killed more than 400 people and left several thousand others homeless in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.In 2005, more than 70,000 people died and millions were left homeless in northern Pakistan and parts of Pakistan-administered Kashmir in the worst-ever natural disaster to hit the country.