Pakistan quake toll up to 25 000

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan yesterday upped the official death toll from last week’s massive earthquake to more than 25 000, with some 63 000 injured.

“The official death toll is 25 000 plus and the number of injured is more than 63 000,” chief military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP. The 7.6-magnitude quake devastated large swathes in the country’s north and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir when it struck on Saturday morning.Sultan said Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, was the worst-hit area where the “maximum number of casualties have been reported.”More than 11 000 people perished there, officials have said.Thousands more died in Bagh and Rawalakot, also near the epicentre in Kashmir, and at least four big towns in North West Frontier Province.The spokesman said the number of army casualties was 452 dead and some 730 injured.Kashmir is highly militarised due to a decades-old dispute with neighbouring India over ownership of the mountainous territory.The United Nations Children’s Fund earlier estimated the number of people killed in the quake at between 30 000 and 40 000, but this has not been confirmed by Pakistani officials.Meanwhile, troops blasted open a key footpath to isolated mountain villages in Pakistan yesterday, while locals used rafts to bring the first aid to areas cut off when a bridge was downed by a huge quake.Hundreds of people desperate to discover the fate of their families surged through after army engineers dynamited and bulldozered a landslide blocking the route out of Muzaffarabad, the devastated capital of Pakistani Kashmir.- Nampa-AFPThe 7.6-magnitude quake devastated large swathes in the country’s north and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir when it struck on Saturday morning.Sultan said Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, was the worst-hit area where the “maximum number of casualties have been reported.”More than 11 000 people perished there, officials have said.Thousands more died in Bagh and Rawalakot, also near the epicentre in Kashmir, and at least four big towns in North West Frontier Province.The spokesman said the number of army casualties was 452 dead and some 730 injured.Kashmir is highly militarised due to a decades-old dispute with neighbouring India over ownership of the mountainous territory.The United Nations Children’s Fund earlier estimated the number of people killed in the quake at between 30 000 and 40 000, but this has not been confirmed by Pakistani officials.Meanwhile, troops blasted open a key footpath to isolated mountain villages in Pakistan yesterday, while locals used rafts to bring the first aid to areas cut off when a bridge was downed by a huge quake.Hundreds of people desperate to discover the fate of their families surged through after army engineers dynamited and bulldozered a landslide blocking the route out of Muzaffarabad, the devastated capital of Pakistani Kashmir.- Nampa-AFP