Rescuers were struggling to reach quake-stricken regions in Pakistan and Afghanistan on Tuesday as officials said the combined death toll from the previous day’s natural disaster rose to more than 300. Thousands of homes have also been damaged, and power and communications were knocked out in already-isolated areas.
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“No one came to help us”. “We will try our best to deal with this disaster using our own resources”, he said.
In Afghanistan, Ismail Kawusi, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry said the numbers gathered so far from hospitals in various provinces recorded 457 injured.
A Pakistani man salvages wood from the rubble of his collapsed house in Lower Dir on October 28, aft …
Pakistan will not issue any appeals to the global community for help as the country has the required resources to carry out the rescue and relief work, said Information Minister Pervez Rashid.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday pledged compensation for those whose homes have been destroyed during a trip to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which has seen the bulk of the casualties so far. He ordered the military to make assets available for the relief effort.
Afghan officials said at least 115 people were confirmed dead and hundreds more injured, with casualties reported from around half a dozen of the country’s 34 provinces, and more than 7,600 homes reported damaged.
In Pakistan, authorities say they are struggling to reach remote mountainous quake-affected areas.
The government was working to provide assistance for those affected, he said.
The militants on Wednesday claimed to have overrun the remote district of Darqad in the quake-hit northern province of Takhar, underscoring the fragile security situation facing relief workers.
That quake was much shallower than Monday’s – 10 kilometers (6 miles) below the surface, compared with 213 kilometers (130 miles) – and thus caused greater damage, said Mohammad Hanif, an official at the Meteorological Department.
Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah posted on Twitter that at least 76 of his countrymen died from the quake.
In his province alone, casualty figures of 11 dead and 25 injured “will rise by the end of the day, once the survey teams get to the remote areas and villages”, Adeeb said.
In Afghanistan’s Takhar province, 12 students at a girls’ school were killed in a stampede as they fled a shaking building. A few of the survivors were flown by military helicopter to Kabul for treatment. ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) missions are flying over natural disaster hit areas while Director General Frontier Works Organization (DG FWO) visited Karakoram Highway (KKH) with troops. “We are transporting tents, medicines and other items to quake-hit areas”, he said.
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The devastation comes six months after a huge quake in Nepal and an aftershock killed nearly 9,000 people.
