More than 270 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in a 7.5 magnitude earthquake that hit in northern Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. There are fears the death toll will rise.
READ MORE: 222 killed, more than 1000 injured as 7.5 quake hits Afghanistan, Pakistan, India
27 October 2015
In Afghanistan the death toll reached at least 115, said Sayed Zafar Hashemi, President Ashraf Ghani's deputy spokesman. At least 4,000 houses and compounds have been destroyed or damaged, according to Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.
26 October 2015
Pakistani officials have increased the country’s death toll to 228, meaning that the total number of people killed in the earthquake currently stands at 282, AP reported.
The US contacted Pakistani officials and offered its help in alleviating the consequences of the earthquake.
“We are in touch with the National Disaster Management Authority and we are ready to provide assistance if requested,” a statement issued by the US embassy in Islamabad said.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the victims and those who lost loved ones as a result of today’s earthquake, in Pakistan and throughout the region,” it added.
The UN is prepared to send assistance to Afghanistan and Pakistan to participate in their relief efforts, UN Secretary General’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said, according to TASS.
“The UN [is]ready to grant aid, if there is a corresponding request,” he said as quoted by TASS. Dujarric also added that the consequences of the quake were “relatively low” due to the “low density of population” in the affected areas. In the meantime, UN agencies have started gathering supplies for the people affected by the quake.
According to new data, more than 200 people were killed in the earthquake, after Afghan officials announced that the death toll from the disaster in their country stood at 52, Reuters reported.
At the same time, the head of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Disaster Management Agency, Amer Afaq, said that as many as 167 people died in Pakistan as a result of the earthquake. According to Pakistan’s military spokesman, General Asim Bajwa, 1,000 more Pakistanis have been injured, Reuters reported.
A footage by Ruptly video agency shows how the earthquake hit Pakistan, people waiting in the streets and the aftermath.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said it had already recorded two aftershocks with magnitudes of 4.5 and 5.3, respectively, according to the Telegraph. The US Geological survey also reported two aftershocks, but put their magnitudes at 4.8 and 4.7, respectively, and said that both occurred west of the epicenter of the quake, the Independent reported.
Pakistan will not request any help from the international community to cope with the consequences of the earthquake, the country’s information minister, Pervez Rashid, told reporters at a news conference.
"We have enough resources to handle the situation. Our top priority is to help those affected because of the earthquake," he said, AP reported.
Rashid also thanked India for offering support in the relief work.
The total death toll from the earthquake that hit Pakistan, Afghanistan and India has risen to at least 180 as Pakistani officials announced that the number of people killed in the quake in that country has reached 145, AP reports. Inayatullah Khan, Pakistan’s provincial minister, told AP that the death toll only in the Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has increased to 121.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will cut short his visit to the UK and return to his country in the view of the earthquake, his daughter said on Twitter.
New data released by Pakistani and Afghan officials say that at least 127 people were killed in the quake. At least 94 were killed and over 600 injured in Pakistan, local media reported, citing officials. The death toll in Afghanistan reached 33 people, while over 200 have been injured, officials said.
Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive of Afghanistan's government, tweeted that the earthquake was "the strongest one felt in recent decades.”
AP quoted him as writing: “There are reports of heavy casualties caused by the earthquake but exact numbers are yet to be released by government authorities.”
About a hundred people have been killed in the earthquake, new data shows. Officials told Reuters that 24 people died in Afghanistan while 76 were killed across Pakistan.
An 80-year-old woman died of a heart attack in the town of Bijbehara, in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said. Also two Indian soldiers were injured after a sentry post collapsed on them in the in the town of Sopore, Police Officer Imtiyaz Hussain told AP.
The death toll in the earthquake has reached 62 in Pakistan, officials said. Forty-six people have been killed in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said Abdul Latif Khan, a senior official at the Provincial Disaster Management Authority. Sixteen more died in tribal regions near the border with Afghanistan, according to another official, Mussarrat Khan.
According to officials, some 400 people have been injured in Pakistan in the quake.
All 190 trains in operation in New Delhi were stopped at the time of the earthquake, a spokesman for the New Delhi metro, Anuj Dayal, told AFP.
“The lines and the trains are now being restored after basic inspection of respective lines," he said.
Dr Muhammad Sadiq, the head of emergency services at a government hospital in Peshawar, said the number of casualties may rise.
"Many more injured are still coming to [the] hospital. Many are still under rubble," Sadiq told AFP.
The earthquake has been followed by a series of aftershocks, USGS reported. Tremors with magnitudes of 4.7 and 4.8 have hit 42-45 km east of the town of Farkhar, Takhar Province, Afghanistan.
Afghan authorities have released information about 12 schoolgirls killed in a stampede following the quake.
"The students rushed to escape the school building in Taluqan city [the capital of Takhar province], triggering a stampede," Takhar education department chief Enayat Naweed told AFP. "Twelve students, all minors, were killed and 35 others were injured."
Pakistani officials say the death toll from the earthquake has jumped to 52 people, AFP reports.
Pakistani Express news reported that 37 people have been killed in Pakistan.
The death toll of the earthquake in Pakistan has reached 29 people, officials told AP.
The death toll from the earthquake in Pakistan has reached 17, officials told AFP.
According to the head of Nangahar Provincial Hospital in Afghanistan, five people have been killed and over 55 injured in the quake.
At least 12 schoolgirls were killed in the city of Taloqan, Takhar Province, in northeastern Afghanistan in a stampede after the quake, officials said.
According to Pakistani government officials, 12 people have been killed, including one in the city of Peshawar.
"We received 50 injured and more are being shifted,” hospital spokesman Syed Jamil Shah told Reuters. “The injured suffered multiple injuries due to [a] building collapse."
According to USGS, the quake was about 196km deep and centered nearly 82km southeast of the city of Feyzabad, 48 km south-west of the town of Jarm, Afghanistan.