Rescuers raced against time on Wednesday to reach cold and hungry survivors of an natural disaster that left entire communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan marooned in remote mountainous regions, as the death toll climbed to 370.
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The bulk of the casualties recorded so far were in Pakistan, where 248 people were killed, including 202 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and more than 1,600 injured, disaster management authorities said. As of Tuesday, the office of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani reported that as many as 115 people were dead and more than 500 injured in nine Afghan provinces, as well as in the capital city of Kabul.
The quake, which struck on Monday, was centred in Afghanistan’s sparsely populated Badakhshan province bordering Pakistan, Tajikistan and China.
“There was rain yesterday and no one came to help us”, said Jamil Khan, a 24-year-old in Shangla, one of the worst-hit districts of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.
Thousands of homes have been destroyed there, as well as more than a hundred schools.
The Associated Press said that the combined death toll in Afghanistan and Pakistan from the powerful eartquake has now risen to 43.
Badakhshan provincial governor Shah Waliullah Adib said about 400 houses were destroyed but he had no figures on casualties.
The World Health Organization said Tuesday it has distributed medical supplies to help thousands of people in the worst-hit parts of Afghanistan, and more trauma kits for 1,200 patients will be dispatched in the coming days. Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said about 76 people had been killed and 268 injured.
129-c-20-(Lynne O’Donnell, AP correspondent)-“we move forward”-AP correspondent Lynne O’Donnell reports Afghan authorities are scrambling to reach the hardest hit area near the epicenter”.
The mountainous region of South Asia is seismically active, with earthquakes resulting from the Indian subcontinent driving into and under the Eurasian landmass.
Though relief is getting through to displaced people, Pakistani media reported that at least 5,000 villagers in the remote Kalash Valley remained homeless and charities could not reach them.
In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the US Agency for worldwide Development was ready to provide emergency shelter and relief.
Authorities were struggling to ascertain the damage in the northern district of Chitral, where a local official said the quake had damaged the water supply system.
That quake was much shallower – 10 kilometers (6 miles) below the surface of the earth, compared to the depth of 213 kilometers (130 miles) on Monday – and thus caused greater damage, said Mohammad Hanif, an official at the Meteorological Department.
“People tried to take my father to the hospital but there was a chaos everywhere and traffic was blocked”, he said.
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Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said a relief package would be announced after damage had been assessed.
