More than 40 dead in SW Pakistan quake

[Flintlock]

There is no such thing as earthquake (EQ) proof home or building.

You can only increase structural strength of building as well as design can be improved but that could only reduce damage when EQ comes but will not eliminate "loss factor".

A really powerful EQ is going to cause damage no matter what.

Well I meant "earthquake resistant" or any other appropriate term.

Technology is available to build houses which can stay-up in severe earthquakes.

 

[Raquib]

Official: Pakistan quake death toll rises to 215

By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer Ashraf Khan, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 25 mins ago

WAM, Pakistan – The death toll from an earthquake that devastated an impoverished valley in southwestern Pakistan rose to 215 on Thursday, a provincial official said, as authorities scrambled to help survivors sleeping in the frigid mountains.

The 6.4 magnitude quake hit an area of Pakistan's Baluchistan province near the Afghan frontier before dawn on Wednesday, demolishing an estimated 2,000 homes in a string of villages.

Officials on Thursday declared the rescue phase of the operation over after residents and emergency workers mounted a final search for survivors or bodies buried in the rubble.

With reports still coming in from outlying areas, provincial government minister Zamrak Khan said the toll had risen to 215 and noted that hospitals were still treating dozens of seriously injured people.

The quake left an estimated 15,000 people homeless in the hard-hit Ziarat district, triggering a relief effort that saw the army airlifting supplies and medical teams into the region.

Officials said several thousand people spent Wednesday night in tents in camps erected by the military. However, they failed to reach all the outlying areas before temperatures plunged to around freezing.

In the hillside hamlet of Kawas, dozens of people slept in the open near the rubble of their simple mud and stone houses.

"We passed the night shivering and with the children crying. There were five of us wrapped in one blanket," said Ala Uddin, a 30-year-old farmer camped with about 15 relatives in an apple orchard.

He said relief supplies had yet to reach them, though people from other villages had brought them food.

In Wam, another wrecked village, rescuers on Thursday searched the rubble of the last house left unexamined, but found only an injured donkey, said Haji Khan, a volunteer from a nearby village.

Meanwhile, relatives of those killed in Wam were arriving to pay condolences. "Oh God, what have you done?" wailed one woman from Quetta, who said she had lost two brothers, two sons and a sister-in-law. She didn't give her name.

The latest quake comes at a precarious time for Pakistan, as the civilian government battles al-Qaida, faces Taliban attacks and grapples with a looming economic crisis.

At least three hard-line Islamic organizations were quick to aid quake survivors, according to an Associated Press reporter who toured the area.

Among them was Jamaat-ud-Dawa, designated a terrorist group by the U.S. government for links to Muslim separatists fighting in India's portion of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

The group set up relief camps and won friends among survivors of a 7.6-magnitude quake that devastated Kashmir and northern Pakistan in October 2005, killing about 80,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

Baluchistan is home to a long-running separatist movement, but has so far been spared the level of militant violence seen in the northwestern tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan is prone to seismic upheavals since it sits atop an area of collision between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates, the same force responsible for the birth of the Himalayan mountains.

Baluchistan's capital, Quetta, was devastated by a 7.5-magnitude temblor in 1935 that killed more than 30,000 people.

Countries including the United States and Germany have offered to help with the latest disaster. However, officials say they can cope without a big international aid effort.

___

Associated Press writers Abdul Sattar in Quetta and Munir Ahmad in Islamabad as well as AP Television News cameraman Abdul Rahman in Wam contributed to this report.



Official: Pakistan quake death toll rises to 215 - Yahoo! News

 

[Neo]

Quake death toll rises to 215, aid awaited ​

KAN BANGLA (updated on: October 30, 2008): Rescuers on Thursday struggled to deliver aid to villagers in remote parts of southwest Pakistan after a powerful earthquake destroyed thousands of homes and killed at least 215 people.

The 6.4-magnitude pre-dawn quake on Wednesday flattened mud-brick houses and triggered landslides in the impoverished province of Balochistan bordering Afghanistan, killing or injuring their occupants as they slept.

But international and local agencies were struggling to get help to survivors who spent a freezing night in the open, with rescuers discovering more victims as they reached remote villages that had still not seen any aid.

"The total I had last night was 215 dead. This figure may go up as there were whole families who disappeared in the disaster," provincial revenue minister Zamarak Khan told AFP.

Some of the new deaths were caused by a strong aftershock on Wednesday, he said.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman said on Thursday she could not say whether the overnight cold claimed more lives but pledged that "we will not let that happen among the survivors".

"We are trying to control damage and contain people in an area where they can escape the cold. The government's attention is focused on this national tragedy," she told a news conference.

A full picture of the number of dead could take up to two days to emerge but the official number was 145 so far, she added.

Earlier, destitute survivors sat beside campfires or huddled together as day broke over the mountainous quake zone.

"We are doomed," said Mohammed Hashim, from Wam, the worst affected of eight villages that were hit hard by the quake. "We have nothing left to save our families from the cold in the night."

Army Major General Tariq Rasheed Khan, supervising the relief and rescue operation, said about 50,000 of the 100,000 people in the region around the historic hill town of Ziarat had been made homeless or badly hit by the quake.

"We are distributing 9,500 blankets, 2,000 tents and 5,600 warm jackets," he told reporters in Kawas, near Wam. But he added: "The requirement is much more than that. It is in fact less than 50 percent of the total requirement."

Relief was coming in slowly, mainly because key roads had been damaged, said Amjad Rashid, head of the Taraqi (development) Foundation, a local non-governmental organisation.

"People are not satisfied. They are demanding more and more. They say the relief operation should be expedited," Rashid said.

Offers of help have come in from the United States, Canada, France, Germany and Pakistan's regional rival India. Teams from the World Health Organisation and the International Committee of the Red Cross have flown to the region.

Authorities have said that the situation is contained and under control.

Yet in the far-flung village of Killi Baio Khan, the village chieftain made a desperate appeal for supplies.

"The urgent need is warm clothes, blankets, tents and food," said Haji Baio Khan. "The military have set up their camps and are providing food but that is not enough."

An AFP correspondent in Wam said emergency tents had not arrived by Thursday morning, forcing exhausted villagers to hunker down in the ruined shells of their homes.

They spent the previous day in a desperate search for loved ones or burying the dead in mass graves, as aftershocks nearly as big as the initial quake pounded the landscape, sending rocks spewing from nearby peaks and sparking fresh panic.

Virtually all houses were reduced to rubble either in the initial quake or by aftershocks. Schools and hospitals were also damaged.

A 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northwest Pakistan and Kashmir killed 74,000 people and displaced 3.5 million in October 2005.

In 1935 a massive quake killed around 30,000 people in Quetta, which at the time was part of British-ruled India.

 

[Neo]

Pakistan not to seek world help for Balochistan quake: NDMA​

ISLAMABAD: The government will not seek assistance from the international community to deal with the aftermath of the earthquake in Balochistan, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Chairman Farooq Ahmed Khan said
on Wednesday.

He said that the government would, however, welcome altruism from other countries and organisations.

Speaking at a media briefing about the earthquake’s devastation and the government's relief efforts, Farooq said the extent of the damage did not require international help.

He said the government was undertaking the needed rescue efforts, and mobilising essential goods, including tents, blankets, medicines and warm cloths to the affected area.

Two C-130 planes had already delivered relief goods and more assistance was on way, he said.

The chairman said Ziarat was the worst hit area, where eight villages had been devastated, and life and property losses of a lesser magnitude had also been reported from parts of Pishin and Quetta.

Farooq feared the causalities, which were 115 by the afternoon, could rise, since reports from far-flung areas of the province were still being compiled.

He said that an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people had been displaced and would be accommodated in around 2,000 tents, which have already been dispatched to the area.

Farooq said 12 military helicopters were assisting in the relief operation, adding that a field hospital had been airlifted to Ziarat by a C-130 plane, while another was on standby in Quetta.

The chairman lamented that the provincial authorities were not enthusiastic in activating the provincial chapters of the NDMA.

 

[Neo]

Over 200 killed, hundreds injured, almost 15,000 displaced: Ziarat: after shock​

* Hundreds buried under rubble after magnitude 6.5 earthquake
* Ensuing landslides destroy 1,500 houses, block roads
* Ziarat nazim says ‘not a single house intact’ in Wam town
* Wam, Warchom, Kan and Kawas towns worst hit
* Huge cracks in Quetta-Ziarat road
* Locals ask for more supplies and volunteers​

​

ZIARAT: At least 200 people were killed, hundreds injured and an estimated 15,000 left homeless on Wednesday when a predawn earthquake hit parts of Balochistan, chiefly the summer resort district of Ziarat.

Ensuing landslides destroyed about 1,500 houses and blocked roads. Scores of people are believed to be buried under the rubble. Wailing villagers dug through rubble with their bare hands in a desperate search for loved ones.

The Meteorological Department said two tremors had struck at 4:30am and 5:15am, with the second, more severe, having a magnitude of 6.5. Originating at a shallow depth of 10km in the Sulaiman Range, the quake caused major damage in Ziarat, Quetta, Pishin and Chaman. Wam, Warchom, Kan and Kawas towns were among the worst hit in Ziarat.

Wam: “There is great destruction. Not a single house is intact,” Ziarat Nazim Dilawar Kakar said about Wam. “Graves are being dug with excavators as we can’t keep dead bodies in the open,” another senior official Sohail-ur-Rehman told BBC. Rescuers said they had recovered 80 bodies from one settlement in Wam. Thirty-five bodies were found from one house. Distraught residents of the village of Sohi were digging a mass grave to bury 17 people killed in one collapsed house and 12 from another.

More supplies: Relief began to trickle into the villages despite the overland route being all but impassable, after the quake left huge cracks in the main 50-kilometre road from Quetta to Ziarat and sent massive boulders crashing down from the mountains. Rescuers were still trying to reach remote areas in mountains above the Ziarat valley and locals said more rescuers were needed.

“It is very cold. We urgently need tents, sweaters, blankets, and medicine to provide timely assistance,” a local rescuer told Daily Times. Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s historical residence in Ziarat was also damaged in the earthquake, Geo News reported. In Quetta, witnesses said people fled screaming from their homes. Television footage showed many outside in the streets, wrapped up against the early morning chill. A 6.2-magnitude aftershock hit the same area at about 5:32pm, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. A three-year-old boy was hurt when a wall collapsed on him as low-intensity tremors jolted Larkana. malik siraj akbar/agencies/daily times monitor

 

[Neo]

Meteorological Department expects more aftershocks until next week​

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has indicated a high probability of more aftershocks in Balochistan during the next week following an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 on the Richter scale that struck Quetta early on Wednesday. PMD Director General Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry said the frequency of further tremors is expected to be high initially but will gradually decrease in the next two weeks. However, another earthquake hitting the area would remain a possibility for at least a month.

 

[Imran Khan]

pak army starts help

 

[courageneverdies]

May Allah help the affected people in this time of trouble and disaster. Please the people in Pakistan contribute as much as you can for the unhelped people and affectees of this calamity.

May the souls, of those who died in this disaster, rest in peace.

KIT

 

[Imran Khan]

 

[Imran Khan]

 

[Imran Khan]

 

[Imran Khan]

 

[Imran Khan]

 

[Imran Khan]

 

[Imran Khan]