Rescue and relief efforts were under way in remote areas of northern Pakistan on Sunday after a powerful earthquake killed at least 20 people and damaged hundreds of buildings.
The quake, measuring 5,7 on the Richter scale, struck at 10.30am GMT on Saturday and was followed by an aftershock measuring 5,5. The epicentre was 200km northeast of Peshawar, the capital of the province bordering Afghanistan, seismologists said.
Rescuers were having difficulty reaching many of the remote areas because many of the roads had been blocked by landlides caused by the quakes, officials said.
”Relief and rescue efforts are under way in quake-hit area,” said federal minister for state and frontier regions Aftab Ahmad Sherpao.
”We have set up an emergency relief centre under the provincial government of North West Frontier Province to coordinate relief and rescue operations in the area affected by the earthquake on Saturday,” Sherpao said.
He said he had been in contact with the mayors of the mountainous districts of Batgram, Manshehra and Kohistan in an attempt to find out the scale of the damage and to reassure them relief goods were on the way.
”I have directed authorities to restore electricity lines in the affected areas,” Sherpao said.
Television reports said people made homeless by the earthquake had been shifted to temporary accomodation with electricity and running water.
”Some 20 people have died, including 10 in a passenger van when it was caught in a landslide in the northern town of Batgram,” Brigadier Javed Cheema, head of the ministry’s National Crisis Management Cell, said on Saturday.
The van crashed into a ravine after being struck by a falling boulder in Batgram, 120km north of Islamabad, he said.
The rest of the victims were killed by collapsing buildings.
Cracks have appeared in hundreds of buildings and roads have also been damaged, Cheema said.
”Rescue teams are facing great difficulty in reaching to remote hilly areas as most of the roads have been blocked by landslides and snowfall,” a local official said.
The provincial government has declared an emergency at hospitals of Hazara division, an official statement said.
The tremors also shook the capital Islamabad, sending families fleeing from their houses.
”The tremors were felt in several cities of the northern regions and also in Islamabad and parts of [Pakistan-controlled] Kashmir,” said Chaudhry Qamar-uz Zaman, director general of the meteorological office in Islamabad. — Sapa-AFP