Powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake strikes southern Pakistan: 46 confirmed fatalities

September 24, 2013 – PAKISTAN – A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit southwestern Pakistan today, the US Geological Survey said, with tremors felt as far away as the Indian capital New Delhi. The quake struck at 4:29 pm local time (1659 IST) around 100 kilometers southwest of the city of Khuzdar in Baluchistan province, at a depth of 15 kilometers. USGS originally measured the earthquake at magnitude 7.4 and 29 kilometers deep but later revised their figure. Pakistan’s meteorological office gave the magnitude as 7.7. The area of the epicenter is sparsely populated, but the USGS issued a red alert for the quake, warning that heavy casualties were likely, based on past data. A senior Pakistani meteorologist, Muhammad Riaz, told Dunya TV station it was a “major” earthquake and “heavy destruction” was likely. Minor tremors were felt as far away as New Delhi, while office workers in the city of Ahmedabad near the border with Pakistan ran out of buildings and into the street. Mumtaz Baluch, senior local administration official in Awaran district, 350 kilometers southwest of Quetta, told AFP: “There are reports of houses being collapsed in the district due to earthquake. We also have initial information about injuries to people as a result of the collapse of houses but there are no reports of any deaths. We have dispatched our teams to the affected area to ascertain the losses.”  

Intense shaking: In April a 7.8-magnitude quake centered in southeast Iran, close to the border with Baluchistan, killed 41 people and affected more than 12,000 on the Pakistan side of the border. People working in offices Karachi rushed out of their building and sat on the footpaths along the roads or stood away from the buildings. “My work table jerked a bit and again and I impulsively rushed outside,” Noor Jabeen, a 28-year woman working for an insurance company said while breathing heavily. “It was not so intense but it was terrible,” said Owais Khan, who works for a provincial government office. “Whenever I feel jolts it reminds me of the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir,” said Amjad Ali, 45, IT official standing on the road said. A 7.6 magnitude quake in 2005 centred in Kashmir, killed at least 73,000 people and left several million homeless in one of the worst natural disasters to hit Pakistan. –NDTV 

Fatalities confirmed: A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocked southern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing 46 people and damaging several houses near the epicenter in Balochistan province. The tremors that lasted almost a minute caused widespread panic in cities of Sindh province like Karachi and Hyderabad. People rushed out of their offices and homes in Karachi, the country’s largest city, and other parts of Sindh and Balochistan provinces. Two persons were killed and several houses and shops were damaged in Awaran area of Khuzdar district in Balochistan, located near the epicentre, media reports said. An emergency was declared in hospitals in Awaran. Reports said the quake was also felt in towns and cities like Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad. National Seismic Monitoring Centre Director Zahid Rafi told PTI that the tremors were of “great intensity” in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, and in some remote areas of the province. The tremors could have caused damage and casualties, he said. “The affected areas include Jaffarabad, Noskhi, Kalat, Windar, Naseerabad, Phunjgur and Mastung,” Rafi said. “The shockwaves were strong enough to even be felt in Karachi, Hyderabad, Thatta, Khairpur and Larkana,” he said. There were chances of aftershocks in these areas, Rafi said. People in Karachi rushed out in panic on I I Chundrigar Road, the main thoroughfare in the financial district, when tremors were first felt in the city. “I could feel the chair I was sitting on moving and shaking and there were shouts of ‘earthquake, earthquake’ and we all rushed out of our building,” said banker Sameera. Residents of Clifton, Defence, Gulshan-e-Iqbal and Bahadurabad too ran out of their homes and offices after feeling the jolts. Samaa news channel reported that the quake had caused damage in some parts of Balochistan, where mobile phone networks had gone down. Administration officials confirmed that they had declared an emergency in some areas and called in rescue workers, the channel reported. – The Hindu