Strong Quake Rocks Western Pakistan

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Pakistani pedestrians and office workers gathered on a Karachi street Tuesday after a powerful earthquake hit southwestern Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD—A strong earthquake felt hundreds of miles away jolted western Pakistan on Tuesday, with local TV networks reporting that at least 10 people had died.
The U.S. Geological Survey gave the quake’s magnitude at 7.7, with the epicenter northeast of the town of Awaran in the mountainous part of Pakistan’s sparsely populated Baluchistan province.

Though the area hit by the quake is very remote, the USGS alert said high casualties in an earthquake of this magnitude were likely. “Past events with this alert level have required a national or international level response,” the USGS alert read.
Jam Kamal Khan, a lawmaker who represents Awaran district in Pakistan’s national assembly, said at least seven people were confirmed dead, and others had been brought to the hospital with injuries.
“The death toll is expected to rise, and the damage is widespread,” Mr. Khan said. “Hundreds of houses have been reduced to rubble. We are still assessing the damage, which is slow because communications in the area have been affected.”
Government officials in the provincial capital were bracing for bad news. “There is a heavy disaster,” said Lateef Kakar of the Baluchistan Provincial Disaster Management Authority. The province has been wracked by a separatist insurgency.
Zahid Rafi, director of the National Seismic Monitoring Center in Islamabad, added that a series of aftershocks followed the initial quake. “After an earthquake like this, the series of aftershocks can last for a while,” he said. “We have already recorded three aftershocks, of 5.7, 5.5 and around 6 magnitude.”
Residents of Quetta, Baluchistan’s capital city some 270 miles from the quake’s epicenter, felt strong tremors. But a spokesman for the government press information department in Quetta said there were no immediate reports of damage in the city.
The quake was felt as far away as the Indian capital of New Delhi.
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com

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