Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Death Toll Rises Above 375 in Afghanistan, Pakistan Earthquake

Associated Press
Published: October 28,2015

Officials worked Wednesday to rush aid to survivors of the Pakistan and Afghanistan earthquake that killed at least 385 people.
Afghani and Pakistani officials said 267 of those deaths occurred in Pakistan, while 115 have been confirmed dead in Afghanistan. The temblor was centered deep beneath the Hindu Kush mountains in a sparsely populated region of northeastern Afghanistan that borders Pakistan, Tajikistan and China.
Rescue crews were working to reach the villages near the epicenter, located 45 miles south of Fayzabad, the capital of Badakhshan province.
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The head of the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority, Wais Ahmad Barmak told parliament that 7,630 homes had been destroyed and around 1,000 animals killed. In battered northwestern Pakistan, more than 10,000 homes were damaged, as well as 147 schools, officials said.
The quake, which struck Monday, was centered in Afghanistan's sparsely populated Badakhshan province bordering Pakistan, Tajikistan and China.
The poverty-stricken region is vast, with mountains and valleys that make it difficult to reach affected areas. Taliban are active in some parts, further complicating access, Barmak said.
Survey teams have been sent to assess casualties and damage in areas that can be reached only on foot or donkey. Once the information they bring back has been assessed, food and non-food supplies would be delivered, Barmak said.
Badakhshan is often hit by earthquakes and other disasters, including floods and landslides. Other regions, too, such as Nuristan and Kunar provinces in the east were presenting access challenges, he told parliament. "We have got some problems like security challenges and road blocks, and unfortunately all roads from Nuristan's capital to its districts are still blocked and some roads are blocked in Kunar too," preventing delivery of help.
(PHOTOS: Quake Rocks Afghanistan, Pakistan)
Earthquake tremors now in Islamabad

Meanwhile, funerals of the victims continued Wednesday and in Pakistan's worst-hit town of Shangla, residents demanded the government's help to rebuild their homes.
According to Pakistan's disaster management authority, the quake damaged 10,586 houses in the country's northwest. Shangla is the worst affected town, with 49 people killed and 228 injured. Another 32 people died in Chitral, the Pakistani town closest to the epicenter of the quake.
Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority said it had distributed 15,519 tents, 25,700 blankets and tons of food. Further supplies would be delivered to remote areas once roads had been cleared and reopened.
In Shangla, 70-year-old Zurqun Nain said his extended family was living at a relative's home after the quake damaged his house. "I had my own home before the earthquake. Now I am homeless at this old age," he said.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the northwestern city of Peshawar on Wednesday to attend a briefing on quake damages. In televised comments, he pledged his government would provide "maximum compensation" to the victims.
"We are going to start the provision of compensation to those whose homes were damaged," he said, adding that 200,000 rupees (about $2,000) would be given to each person to rebuild their homes.

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