10 Killed As Quake Rocks Pakistan

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The Associated Press Nov 3, 2002 : 9:39 am ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- A moderate earthquake jolted northern Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 48, many of them critically, officials said.

The magnitude-4.5 quake hit near Gilgit, about 125 miles north of Islamabad, said Chaudhry Mehmood Arif, an official in the Seismic Center in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The tremor was an aftershock from quakes Saturday that shook the town of Skardu, 75 miles southeast of Gilgit, Arif said.

Four villages, with a total population of 1,500, were most affected by the tremors, Information Minister Nisar Memon said. Several homes were destroyed, and 10 bodies were found in the rubble, he said.

The Pakistan military took many of the injured out by helicopter after landslides blocked the only road leading to the quake site.

The tremors also damaged a portion of the northern highway that runs the length of Pakistan to China, according to The Associated Press of Pakistan.

A series of tremors have rumbled through northern Pakistan over the past 24 hours, shaking the foundations of fragile mud homes that cling to mountainsides.

The remoteness of the region makes it impossible to know quickly the full extent of the damage. But the area is sparsely populated.

Emergency personnel have been sent to the area to try to provide temporary shelter for those whose homes have been destroyed, the government-run news agency said.

-- Anonymous, November 03, 2002


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