Strong earthquake in southwest Pakistan kills at least 23 people, injures 200
A powerful earthquake collapsed at least one coal mine and dozens of mud houses in southwest Pakistan early Thursday, killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 200, an official said.
The death toll was expected to rise as crews searched in the remote mountainous area, said Suhail Anwar Shaheen, the local deputy commissioner.
At least four were killed when the coal mine in which they were working collapsed, said Shaheen, citing information from coal miners in the area. As many as 100 homes also collapsed, burying sleeping residents inside.
The epicenter of the magnitude 5.9 quake was about nine miles north-northeast of Harnai in Baluchistan province, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It struck about 5.5 miles below the surface; shallower quakes tend to cause more damage.
The area, about 60 miles from Quetta, the provincial capital, is dotted with coal mines. The temblor struck in the early morning when scores of miners were already at work.
Pakistan’s military was deployed to the area to airlift dozens of injured people from mountainous areas. At least nine critically injured people were taken to the provincial hospital in Quetta. Search and rescue teams have arrived in the mountains, an army statement said.
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Concern has grown about miners who might be trapped. Homes lay in heaps of mud and straw. Residents of small mountain villages were seen wandering stunned among the rubble.
“Women, children, everyone was running here and there,” said resident Ghulam Khan. “We were scared and we didn’t know what to do.”
Ambulances soon arrived to take the injured to the district hospital in Harnai.
Doctors treated patients outside the hospital as magnitude 4.6 aftershocks continued into the morning. Children with bloodied bandages lay on stretchers outside the hospital as ambulances brought more wounded.
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“So far we have treated more than 200 casualties,” said Manzoor Ahmed, medical superintendent of the Harnai hospital. The small rural facility has been taxed to the limit, he said. As many as 15 bodies were brought there.
Most of the population in the area live in sun-baked mud houses. Rescue efforts were underway, but Shaheen said it would take hours to reach many of the hardest-hit areas.
Witnesses said residents were wrapped in blankets against the cold, sitting on the side of the road waiting for the aftershocks to subside and for help to arrive.
Baluchistan lies in a seismically active region, according to the provincial disaster-management authority. The worst earthquake, in 1935, destroyed the provincial capital and killed more than 35,000 people. Since then, scores of earthquakes have rattled the province, Pakistan’s least-populated, with just 12 million people.
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