Oct 26, 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34636269

More than 100 people have been killed in a powerful earthquake which has hit north-eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Tremors from the magnitude 7.5 quake were also felt in northern India and Tajikistan.

At least 12 of the victims were schoolgirls killed in a crush as they tried to get out of their building.

The earthquake was centred in the mountainous Hindu Kush region, 76km (45 miles) south of Faizabad, the US Geological Survey reported.

Buildings have been evacuated and communications disrupted in many areas.

Live updates

Sunnatullah Timour, a spokesman for the governor of the Afghan province of Takhar, told the BBC that as well as the fatalities at the girls' school, another 25 students were injured in the stampede.

Deaths and injuries have also been reported in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar.

In Pakistan, the disaster management authority said 94 people had been confirmed dead in the north of the country.

Seventy-one of those deaths were in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 18 in the federally administered tribal areas, four in the Gilgit-Baltistan region and one in Punjab.

Image copyrightBBC Afghan
Image captionPictures from Ghazni, south-west of Kabul, showed damage to buildings
Image copyrightEPA
Image captionFalling debris destroyed this motorised rickshaw in Peshawar, Pakistan
In the city of Karimabad, in Gilgit-Baltistan, a witness who gave his name as Anas told the BBC that the quake had sent a landslide crashing into the Hunza river.

"At first it was as if someone was shaking us. There were about 20 of us and we just held on to each other," he said.

"Right after that we saw a major landslide. Some people say it was a glacier that came down, some people say it was a hill. It fell right in front of our eyes."

The USGS estimated that the quake happened at a depth of 212km. The magnitude was initially put at 7.7 but later downgraded.

An aftershock measured at 4.8 magnitude struck shortly afterwards.


Analysis by Jonathan Webb, BBC News science reporter
Even at its revised magnitude of 7.5, this was a powerful tremor. Around the world only about 20 quakes each year, on average, measure greater than 7.0.

But its focus was deep - much further below the surface than the 7.8 quake which brought widespread destruction to eastern Nepal in April. That event was only 8km deep and was followed in early May by an aftershock with magnitude 7.3.

Similarly, the devastating 2005 Kashmir earthquake was magnitude 7.6 and just 26km deep. Today's quake, at a depth of more than 200km, appears to have caused widespread but less severe ground shaking.

People in the Indian capital Delhi ran into the streets after the tremor struck, and schools and offices were evacuated. The Delhi metro was also briefly halted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he had ordered an urgent assessment of any damage.

"We stand ready for assistance where required, including Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.

Catherine Bhatti, from Durham in the UK, was visiting relatives in Sarghoda, Pakistan, when the quake struck.

"It came out of the blue, everything started to move slightly then it became stronger. We made our way downstairs and gathered outside on the lawn," she told the BBC.

"My in-laws, who have lived here all their lives, say they have never experienced anything like this before."

Image copyrightReuters
Image captionInjured people were brought to a hospital in Jalalabad, Afghanistan

Image captionPeople in the Indian capital Delhi ran into the streets as buildings shook
The region has a history of powerful earthquakes caused by the northward collision of India with central Asia.

In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 quake in Pakistan-administered Kashmir left more than 75,000 people dead.

In April this year, Nepal suffered its worst earthquake on record with 9,000 people killed and about 900,000 homes damaged or destroyed.

 

Oct 27, 2015

d---, more than 300+ confirmed dead currently.

 

Oct 27, 2015

How come my white American Christian friends on Facebook and Twitter haven't been hashtagging Pray for Pakistan....

 

Oct 27, 2015

 

Oct 27, 2015

well the Pakistan goverment did let Osama Bin Laden hide out in their country for all those years.