High death toll expected

2005-10-10 13:07

Islamabad - The death toll in Pakistan from a major earthquake on Saturday could reach into the hundreds, the head of the country's national crisis management centre said.

Most of the deaths were in the northern area of Mansehra and from Pakistan's sector of the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir, Brigadier Javed Cheema said.

"The death toll could be in hundreds," he added. "The maximum number of casualties have been reported from areas in Mansehra district, Muzaffarabad, Rawlakot and Bagh in Kashmir," he said.

A policeman in Mansehra, Iqbal Ahmed, said "90 percent" of the houses in three towns in Mansehra division have been razed to the ground.

Officials have earlier said that an entire village in Bagh district was "wiped out", while rescuers are searching through the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in the capital Islamabad.

At least two people were killed in the building and 32 injured, an Islamabad police official said, and photographers at the scene said they had seen more bodies being pulled out.

- AFP