A major earthquake shook cities and villages across the south Asian subcontinent yesterday, wiping out several villages in Pakistan and leading to fears that the death toll could run into thousands.
Officials said heavy damage was expected in northern Pakistan, but details were difficult to obtain because telephone lines were down and mobile networks overwhelmed.
"The deaths could be running in the thousands. We do not have an exact figure for casualties at this moment, but it's massive," President Pervez Musharraf's spokesman, Major-General Shaukat Sultan, said following an aerial survey of stricken areas.
The earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.6, struck at 8:50am local time and was centered in forest-clad mountains of Pakistani Kashmir, near the Indian border, about 95km northeast of Islamabad.
The first quake was followed by a series of frightening after-shocks between magnitudes of 5.4 and 6.3 -- the last also the biggest at 3:46pm.
They were felt across the subcontinent and shook buildings in the Afghan, Indian and Bangladeshi capitals of Kabul, New Delhi and Dhaka.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao told ARY One television he had reports that several villages had been entirely wiped out.
More than 100 were killed in one district of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province alone, police said. Damage was also heavy in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, residents said.
Geo TV said 25 people had been killed in Pakistani Kashmir and about 30 in the Hazara area of North West Frontier Province.
President Musharraf went to the scene in Islamabad where scores of people were feared killed or trapped in two 12-story apartment blocks reduced to rubble.
"It is a test for all of us. It is a test for me, of the Prime Minister, of the government and of the entire nation and I am sure we will succeed," Musharraf said.
Some 80 to 100 people were believed trapped beneath the rubble, according to Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao.
Correspondents earlier saw the bodies of at least three people being pulled out, as well as six injured people pulled from the debris.
"The quake jolted me awake and I saw people running down the staircase," said Sabahat Ahmed, a resident of one of the blocks.
"By the time the second tremor hit, the building had already started to collapse. As the building was collapsing people were still coming out from it. I heard and saw various people in a state of panic and many stuck under the collapsed building," he said.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79