Powerful quake rocks South Asia, at least one dead

From India and Pakistan to Afghanistan and Tajikistan, the 6.6-magnitude earthquake could be felt.

A boy who was injured in an earthquake cries outside a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, on April 10, 2016. Arshad Arbab/EPA

Islamabad // A powerful earthquake rocked large parts of South Asia on Sunday, with one person killed by falling rocks in Pakistan and tremors felt in at least four countries.

The 6.6-magnitude quake struck north-east Afghanistan at a depth of 210 kilometres at 2.58pm local time, the US Geological Survey said.

It was felt for a few seconds in the Afghan capital Kabul 282km to the south and in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, where some residents evacuated apartment blocks after tremors shook ceiling fans and furniture.

In the Indian capital New Delhi, buildings in the centre swayed and the metro train system was halted temporarily as a precaution.

Terrified residents fled their homes and offices as buildings swayed in Islamabad, with television footage showing people praying in public.

People rushed out of their homes in the northern region of Indian-administered Kashmir.

In Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan which borders northern Afghanistan, tremors were felt but there were no immediate reports of damage.

A spokesman at Pakistan’s national disaster management authority, Ahmad Kamal, said that post-quake landslides were a potential threat. He said he had asked regional authorities to prepare for all possible contingencies.

One man was killed in Pakistan’s mountainous northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan when he was hit by falling rocks in the town of Chilas, said another official on condition of anonymity.

Authorities in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar said 28 people were brought to the government-run Lady Reading Hospital. They were discharged after first aid, said spokesman Jamil Shah.

An official of the provincial disaster management authority in Peshawar said they have received reports of 12 other people injured in Swat, Bunair and upper Dir districts.

Pakistani student, Kiran Saeed, said she was studying at home when her chair shook and initially she thought someone had deliberately pushed it. “When I turned back, no one was there and then the walls started shaking. We came out of the home and everyone was reciting verses from Quran,” she said from Rawalpindi, a garrison city near Islamabad.

Sahiba Bibi, an Islamabad resident, said she almost fell to the ground when the tremors began.

“I am still very terrified,” she said.

There were no casualties in Afghanistan according to an initial assessment, said Aslam Sayas, deputy director of the country’s disaster management authority.

Last October a 7.5-magnitude quake ripped across Pakistan and Afghanistan, killing almost 400 people and flattening buildings in rugged terrain that impeded relief efforts.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press