The regional information minister of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtukhwa (KPK) province said on Tuesday (October 27) that at least 200 people had been killed and more than 2,000 injured in an earthquake which hit remote mountainous regions of northern Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday (October 26).
Information Minister Shah Farman was talking to reporters late on Tuesday outside the Lady Reading hospital in Peshawar, where dozens of people injured in the quake are being treated.
“Tentatively, we can say that the death toll is up to 200, and around 2,000 people are injured. Most among these are from Malakand division and from district Torghar in Hazara division which have been affected most,” Farman said.
Pakistani authorities earlier confirmed 228 deaths in Pakistan while in Afghanistan, the death toll reached at least 115, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s deputy spokesman, said.
At least 4,000 houses and compounds had been destroyed or damaged, Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said.
Inside the hospital, emergency wards were crammed with injured from Peshawar and nearby regions.
Mohammad Umair, a student who broke his leg and some ribs during the quake, said he had been in his apartment in an upper storey of a building when the earth started shaking.
“I came running down. While I was standing there, I saw people running so I also started to run. I looked up and saw the roof falling. I just saw stones but I do not know how I got injured,” he said.
Relatives waited in the ante-rooms and waiting rooms of the hospital.
Fida Hussain, a local shopkeeper whose cousin was injured in the quake, said it seems that damage were limited.
“There are many old and big buildings in the city here. We were of course greatly terrified. But thanks to God for saving everyone in those buildings. The earthquake was massive, but thank God the damage is not so much,” he said.
The prolonged tremors of the 7.5 magnitude earthquake were some of the worst the region has experienced in recent years and were felt hundreds of miles from the epicentre in Jurm in north-east Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s rescue officials say they have dispatched aircraft, road-clearing teams and rescue workers to some of the country’s most isolated valleys in the aftermath of a powerful earthquake.
