More than 230 killed in huge Balochistan quake; aftershocks continue

Pakistan's military Wednesday rushed to reach the scene of a huge earthquake that killed more than 230 people and toppled thousands of mud-built homes when it hit the country's southwest. The 7.7-magnitude quake struck on Tuesday afternoon in Balochistan province's Awaran district whereas aftershocks continued to occur in the northwestern part of the country with the latest tremor measured on Wednesday at 4.7 on the Richter scale. Officials said 238 deaths had been confirmed so far, 208 in Awaran district, and the toll is expected to rise as rescue teams reach more villages in the remote area. “A total of six districts, Awaran, Kech, Gwadar, Panjgur, Chaghi and Khuzdar, and a population of over 300,000 have been affected by the earthquake,” Jan Muhammad Buledi, spokesman for the Balochistan government said while adressing a press conference. Buledi confirmed the quake's death toll at 238 and added that more than 400 persons had suffered injuries. The provincial government spokesman stated that Iran and Turkey had offered support for the earthquake survivors in Balochistan. He admitted that thousands of earthquake survivors were facing difficulties in Awaran and Kech districts of Balochistan. Buledi said aid workers were facing difficulities in reaching out to survivors since communication system was severely affected by the earthquake. Buledi said teams were working to recover bodies, but the priority was to move the injured to hospitals as soon as possible, a difficult task in a desolate area with minimal infrastructure. “We are seriously lacking medical facilities and there is no space to treat injured people in the local hospitals,” he said. “We are trying to shift seriously injured people to Karachi through helicopters and others to the neighbouring districts.” The head of the provincial disaster management agency, Abdul Latif Kakar, said that 30 people had died in Kech district, a toll confirmed by another senior local official. "There is nothing, patients are dying", Rehmatullah Muhammad Hassani, an earthquake survivor told Dawn.com via phone from District Headquarter Hospital Awaran claiming that patients were not even provided basic first aid in the hospital. "There are no doctors and para-medics", Muhammad Hassani claimed. Hassani said that a large number of mud-walled houses had collapsed as result of the powerful earthquake tremors. "We fear there are people still under the rubles", he said. The Awaran resident added that authorities had yet to launch an effective rescue operation to retrieve the people stuck from under the rubble. Moreover, a para-medic, Nazar Muhammad, said 70 injured were brought to district hospital Awaran for medical treatment. He said, "we have no surgery equipment and we are only providing basic first aid to the survivors." The army has sent 100 medical staff and 1,000 troops to the area to help with rescue efforts and has established a medical centre in one of the worst-affected villages, Tarteej. The scale of the territory involved is daunting. Awaran's population is scattered over an area of more than 21,000 square kilometres. More than 60,000 people live within 50 kilometres of the epicentre, according to the UN disaster agency, mostly in easily collapsible mud homes. Abdul Rasheed Baloch, a senior official in Awaran, said teams had worked through the night to try to retrieve bodies and survivors from the rubble. “Around 90 per cent of houses in the district have been destroyed. Almost all the mud houses have collapsed,” he said. Some of the dead have already been laid to rest in their villages, he added. Tremors were felt on Tuesday as far away as New Delhi and even Dubai in the Gulf, while people in the Indian city of Ahmedabad near the border with Pakistan ran into the streets in panic. Office workers in Pakistan's largest city Karachi rushed out of their buildings in an experience reminiscent of the 2005 earthquake to that hit the country. A 7.6 magnitude quake in 2005, centred in Kashmir, had killed at least 73,000 people and left several million homeless in one of the worst natural disasters to hit Pakistan. The US Geological Survey issued a red alert on Tuesday, warning that heavy casualties were likely based on past data, and the provincial government declared an emergency in Awaran. Television footage showed collapsed houses, caved-in roofs and people sitting in the open air outside their homes, the rubble of mud and bricks scattered around them. Iran's Red Crescent reported no damage from the latest quake over the border from Pakistan. Balochistan is Pakistan's largest but least populous province. But it is also a flashpoint for growing violence against minority Shia Muslims and has suffered attacks blamed on Taliban militants. It also suffers from an ongoing separatist insurgency which began in 2004 when Baloch rebels rose up to demand a greater share of profits from the province's mineral resources.