SAN FRANCISCO, September 24, (THEWILL) – At least 19 people have been killed and 300 wounded after a shallow earthquake rattled north-eastern Pakistan, a senior police officer said, with the tremor tearing car-sized cracks into roads and heavily damaging infrastructure.
AFP reports that the quake sent people in cities across the country running into the streets, as cars near the epicentre were wedged in between massive cracks that ripped apart roads while other vehicles were upended by the tremor.
The epicentre of the 5.2-magnitude quake was near the Kashmiri city of Mirpur, roughly 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Jhelum in agricultural Punjab province, according to data released by the US Geological Survey.
On one of the district’s two main roads, reporters could see cracks at least four feet deep, some filling with water from a nearby canal.
Ambulances could be seen, but Pakistani troops were preventing further travel. The military deployed “aviation and medical support” teams along with troops to affected areas in Kashmir, according to its spokesman.
Television footage showed cars trapped in some of the cracks, as well as a bus and a truck lying on their sides at the road’s edge.
“At least 19 people have been killed and more than 300 wounded,” said Sardar Gulfaraz, deputy inspector general of police in Mirpur, in televised comments.
However, the chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority gave a lower toll at a press conference in Islamabad.
“I can confirm 10 deaths and the number of wounded is 100,” chairman Lieutenant General Mohammad Afzal said, adding that he had received reports of a higher toll.
“Things are under control,” he said, adding that the nearby Mangla Dam, one of Pakistan’s two main water reservoirs, was unaffected by the quake.
The prime minister of Pakistani Kashmir, Raja Farooq Haider Khan, told reporters that infrastructure had been “destroyed”.
Roads, mobile phone towers, and electricity poles in the area were badly damaged, Naeem Chughtai, a Mirpur resident living near the city’s main hospital, told AFP.
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