Earthquake in Himalayan Pakistan Kills at Least 25
An earthquake rattled a remote mountainous region of northern Pakistan before dawn Thursday, killing at least 25 people, officials said.
The temblor hit the Gilgit region, about 240 miles northeast of Peshawar, said Jehangir Khan, an official with the Ministry of Kashmiri Affairs in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Aftershocks rumbled for hours.
Pakistan’s Meteorological Department said the quake’s magnitude was 5.5. The U.S. Geologic Survey in Golden, Colo., said the earthquake measured 5.8, and put the epicenter about 30 miles south-southeast of Gilgit, in the Himalayan foothills.
Khan said people fled from crumbling homes in the hardest-hit villages: Turbelin, Mushkin, Dashkin and Harchu. Those locations have a combined population of more than 6,000.
“We are expecting the casualties may rise,” Khan said. “We do not have a number for the injured.”
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