People evacuated from buildings in Karachi following tremors yesterday.
QUETTA: A powerful earthquake in Iran yesterday killed 34 people, wounded about 80 and damaged more than 1,000 mud homes in Mashkail in the Washuk district, about 3km from the Iranian border, Pakistani state TV said.
Mashkel in Baluchistan is about 600km southwest of Quetta, the main town of Baluchistan province, which borders Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province.
President Asif Ali Zardari expressed grief over the losses in both countries.
The earthquake was felt across large parts of Pakistan, including Islamabad, where buildings shook, in the largest city of Karachi where tremors prompted many to flee buildings in terror, Hyderabad, Quetta, Abbottabad and Lahore, Geo News reported.
There were no reports of significant damage to infrastructure.
Pakistan’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity, one of the biggest charities but on a UN terror blacklist as an alleged front for terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, announced on Twitter that its teams were already in place.
“Rescue and aid teams have reached Kharan and Panjgour while relief efforts are underway in these districts,” it said.
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, head of the charity and founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, also tweeted in English: “Our thought, prayers go out to the victims of earthquake in Iran and affected areas in Pakistan. Our rescue and aid teams have reached the site.”
Pakistan was hit by a 7.6-magnitude quake on October 8, 2005, that killed more than 73,000 people and left about 3.5 million homeless, mainly in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and parts of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Agencies
