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AWARAN. — Desperate villagers in south-west Pakistan clawed through the wreckage of their ruined homes yesterday, a day after a huge earthquake struck, killing more than 300 people and creating a new island off the coast.
The 7,7-magnitude quake hit on Tuesday afternoon in Baluchistan province’s remote Awaran district — a dirt-poor expanse of land that is roughly the size of Wales.

At least 328 people have been confirmed dead and more than 450 injured, according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority and the Baluchistan government.

In the village of Dalbedi, the earthquake — Pakistan’s deadliest since the devastating Kashmir quake of 2005, which killed 73 000 — flattened some 250 houses, an AFP photographer said.

Bewildered villagers dug with their hands through the rubble of their mud houses in Dalbedi to retrieve what was left of their meagre possessions.

Their simple houses destroyed, they used rags, old clothes, sheets and branches to shelter their families from the sun. PDMA official Ahmad Nawaz confirmed the death toll and said the injured numbered 498.

The authorities have prioritised finding the injured and getting them to hospital, but the task is hampered by the area’s remoteness and the limited infrastructure. They are also trying to provide tents to shelter the thousands left homeless.

“It is difficult to estimate the real magnitude of the losses because the area is very vast with small and scattered villages,” said Major-General Muhammad Saeed Aleem, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority.

“We will receive satellite images tonight and then we will be in a position to analyse the magnitude of the losses.”
The army has rushed medical staff and troops to the devastated area to help with rescue efforts, along with seven tonnes of food and a tonne of medicine.

Some of the injured were being treated in hospital in Karachi. A man who gave his name as Hassa, from a village in Awaran, more than 250 kilometres away, described the moment the quake hit. — AFP.