30 Reported Dead as Strong Quake Hits South Asia

A powerful earthquake rocked parts of northern Pakistan, India and Afghanistan this morning, collapsing part of at least one high-rise building, and initial reports indicated that more than 30 people were killed.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 8:05 a.m. quake had a magnitude of 7.6 and was centered 60 miles northeast of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.

Part of a 10-story building collapsed in Islamabad, Associated Press reported. Scores of houses in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir also collapsed, local officials said.

Pakistan’s GEO TV reported that the quake killed 25 people in the Pakistani-held portion of Kashmir and four more elsewhere in the north. Officials could not immediately confirm all of the deaths.

Indian authorities said at least nine were killed in Jammu and Kashmir state, including five Indian soldiers who died when a bunker collapsed in the Uri district, India’s NDTV news reported.

Video broadcast on Pakistani state television showed rescue workers frantically pulling injured people from the collapsed building next to a high-rise in Islamabad as onlookers wept. Some reports said at least a few of the victims had died and many were believed trapped in the rubble. A crane lifted a crushed car from the ruins.

At least four people were injured and several shops damaged in the city of Lahore, in northeastern Pakistan, Associated Press reported.

In Jammu and Kashmir, Indian authorities said they expected widespread damage but were having difficulty assessing the quake’s effects because phone lines were down in the mountainous region.

At least 19 people were reported hurt in the Poonch district of the Indian-held portion of Kashmir. One person was reported killed and 80 injured in Baramulla district, but by midday, there were no reports of massive damage in the subcontinent’s most populated areas.

The main highway linking Srinagar, summer capital of India’s portion of the disputed territory, and Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistani-held portion of Kashmir, was blocked by landslides, which could hamper rescue and relief efforts.

Strong tremors caused buildings as far away as New Delhi and Kabul, the Afghan capital, to sway for about a minute, sending panicked workers and residents into the streets.

Brief aftershocks followed the quake.

The epicenter was slightly more than 6 miles underground, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated.

Residents in Islamabad and the northwestern city of Peshawar reported moderate to strong shaking and light damage, according to the geological survey’s website.

The last major earthquake on the subcontinent was in the Indian state of Gujarat in January 2001. Nearly 20,000 people were killed and about 166,000 injured. The magnitude-7.7 quake, whose epicenter was in the city of Bhuj, destroyed 783,000 buildings, most of them village homes.