In Afghanistan, Sayed Zafar Hashimi, a presidential spokesman, said Tuesday that at least 115 people were killed and 538 were injured across the country.
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Civilian authorities and Pakistan’s military dispatched several choppers to affected areas to assess damage and run rescue operations, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.
Up to 14 people have been confirmed killed and 71 others injured in Badakhshan province, deputy to provincial government, Gul Ahmad Bedar said, adding hundreds of houses were also destroyed in the tremor.
Badakhshan’s Governor, Shah Waliullah Adeeb, said death tolls and casualty figures are likely to “rise by the end of the day, once the survey teams get to the remote areas and villages”.
However the relief effort is being complicated by unstable security caused by the Taliban insurgency, which has made large parts of the affected areas unsafe for global organisations and government troops.
Most of the affected people in the northwestern town of Dir spent the chilly night in the open, waiting for help to arrive.
In Afghanistan, the rescuers have to face the hard task of entering Badakhshan, which is the remote province where the earthquake’s epicentre is located. Pakistani officials said at least two glaciers in the Karakoram mountain range had burst and raised fears of flash-floods.
Monday’s quake shook buildings in the capital, Islamabad, and elsewhere in Pakistan and Afghanistan early Monday afternoon for up to 45 seconds, creating cracks in walls and shutting down power.
Monday’s natural disaster was similar in strength to one that struck neighboring Kashmir and killed more than 70,000 in 2005.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was completing a trip to the USA, said in a televised comment from London that he planned to fly to the quake-affected region today.
Shockwaves were felt in northern India and in Pakistan’s capital, where hundreds of people ran out of buildings as the ground rolled beneath them.
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The quake was centered deep beneath the mountains in a region of Afghanistan bordering Pakistan.
