Quake rocks Pakistan, India, Afghanistan

[ragingfish]

Quote, originally posted by MSNBC »Quake rocks Pakistan, India, Afghanistan‘Massive’ casualties feared after 7.6 temblor; some Pakistani villages buriedThis aerial view shows a collapsed building in Islamabad following a strong earthquake on Saturday.MSNBC News ServicesUpdated: 4:54 a.m. ET Oct. 8, 2005ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake rocked South Asia on Saturday, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Several villages in northern Pakistan were buried in landslides, and casualties could be “massive,” a Pakistan army spokesman said.Pakistan’s Geo television reported that Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said hundreds were killed. The report could not be immediately confirmed.“The damage and casualties could be massive and it is a national tragedy,” said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the Pakistani army’s chief spokesman. “The is the worst earthquake in recent times.”rth-northeast of Islamabad at a depth of just six miles.'Major' earthquakeThe U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site the quake hit at 8:50 a.m. local time and had a magnitude of 7.6. It was centered 58 miles north-northeast of Islamabad at a depth of just six miles.The USGS described the quake as “major.”Dozens of people were feared trapped in the rubble of a 10-story apartment building in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Rescue workers pulled two injured people from a huge pile of debris.'I heard a big bang'Qaiser Abbas, a receptionist in the damaged building in Islamabad, said he was sitting in his office when the building suddenly began to shake.“After five seconds, I heard big sound, and then about 40 apartments collapsed,” he said.The quake badly damaged a village near Balakot, a scenic town about 180 miles northeast of Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, regional police chief Ataullah Wazir said. Local media reports said many homes in Balakot had collapsed.Four people were killed in the province’s Shangla district, said Bahar Karam, a relief official in the area.In the Afghan capital, Kabul, residents fled their homes for fear they would collapse. Kabul is about 400 miles northwest of Islamabad.U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara said the quake was also felt at Bagram, the main American base in Afghanistan, but he had no reports of damage there or at other bases around the country.But an 11-year-old girl in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangahar province, which borders Pakistan, was crushed to death when a wall in her home collapsed, said Gafar Khan, a police official.School in Pakistan damagedPolice in the Pakistani city of Lahore said at least eight people were injured and four shops were damaged. The earthquake also damaged part of a school in Rawalpindi, a city near Islamabad, injuring at least two girls.In Islamabad, buildings shook and walls swayed for about a minute. Panicked people ran out of their homes and offices in many cities. Slight tremors continued afterward.The quake also caused panic in Rawalpindi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta near the Afghan border, as well as the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan.At least 100 houses were damaged in India’s Jammu-Kashmir state, including a dozen houses in Srinagar, the summer capital, said B.B. Vyas, a senior administration official.“It was one of the most intense earthquakes felt in the Srinagar region in at least two decades,” said G.K. Mohanty, an official in the meteorological office in Srinagar.Two people, including a nine-month-old baby, were killed when the walls of their homes collapsed, said a police officer in Srinagar. Telephone lines were down across the state, and power had been switched off in the state as a precaution, he said. Bridges had developed cracks, but traffic was passing over them.The tremor was felt in northern India.“It was so strong that I saw buildings swaying. It was terrifying,” said Hari Singh, a guard in an apartment complex in the New Delhi suburb of Noida. Hundreds of residents there raced down from their apartments after their beds and couches started shaking.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9626146/

[joatmon]

That was a big one, and some serious aftershocks too.USGS provides near real time earthquake data for the world, including RSS feeds and a Google Earth dynamic layer. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/catalogs/

[ragingfish]

Latest numbers put the death toll at over 18,000.Sometimes I swear the earth is trying to tell us something...tsnuamis, hurricanes, and now earthquakes...

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by ragingfish »Sometimes I swear the earth is trying to tell us something...tsnuamis, hurricanes, and now earthquakes...You and me both. People can say what they want, but I'm convinced that mother nature is f'in pissed! She's had it with us. Stupid humans have taken a crap on her one too many times. Gee, maybe she's trying to tell us that this planet isn't OURS for the taking, perhaps? My heart goes out to those caught in this, yet another tragedy.

[joatmon]

I don't think that natural disasters are any worse than they have been in the past, just that with global instant news we hear about everything right away, and with the population today compared to historical levels, lives lost and material cost of damage go way up. Still, staggering death count from the earth quake, now over 30K.

[northvibe]

but it does seem to happen more frequently....nature is disturbed and to get back into balance...humans must die! thats a quote from mother nature when i interviewed her this morning.