Widespread deaths after Afghan quake

Over 1,000 people were injured, 956 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone. No death was reported in India as a result of the quake. The USGS initially measured the quake’s intensity at 7.7 on the Richter scale, and then revised it down to 7.6 and later to 7.5. “We saw people leaving buildings, and we were remembering our God”, Pakistani journalist Zubair Khan said by telephone from the Swat Valley northwest of the capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif left for Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to supervise rescue operations in the earthquake-hit areas, militarys media wing ISPR said in a statement. He also urged people to stay away from buildings for fears of additional quakes.

Kashmiri girls stand on a road divider after vacating their office buildings following an natural disaster in Srinagar. “We have not seen an quake this powerful. But within seconds, the earth began shaking below my feet, and that’s when I ran out of the building”, government official Naseer Ahmed told the CBC. “I was very pained to hear of this”, he said.

The Afghan provinces of Nangarhar and Takhar were hit hard.

Reports of casualties have been coming in from different areas, with The Dawn reporting that at least 71 people have been killed and hundreds injured as walls and roofs collapsed in various areas.

A powerful 7.5 magnitude quake which rocked parts of South Asia killed more than 200 people on Monday, including 12 Afghan girls crushed in a stampede as they fled their collapsing school. Another 30 injured students were taken to a hospital.

The tremors were felt in Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi and other parts of the National Capital Region (NCR), Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan, sources said.

A police official in Badakhshan said that dozens of homes were destroyed.

Pakistan’s military chief says troops were deployed and helicopters sent to aid civilians.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he had called for an assessment.

Are you in Afghanistan, India or Pakistan? One woman died in Kashmir’s Baramulla of a heart attack when the tremors hit and there was major damage to property.

Alice Jefferson added: “We are awaiting more information on damage reports in Afghanistan and north-western Pakistan through news alerts”.