Continue reading »]]> Several parts of Pakistan, including the federal capital, were today rocked by an earthquake measuring six on the Richter scale.

The quake, which had its epicentre in the Hindu Kush mountain range and occurred at about 4.15 am, shook Islamabad, the North West Frontier Province, parts of Punjab province and the Northern Areas. The local met office said.

There were no reports of loss of life or damage to property.

Many parts of Pakistan were rocked by an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale on Sunday.

The Hindu News Update Service

Continue reading »]]> Officials say they fear that up to 300 people have been killed in an earthquake in Pakistan’s south-west Balochistan province.

Up to 50,000 people are thought to be homeless following the 6.4 magnitude tremor on Wednesday.

Since the quake, there have been many aftershocks, frightening people in villages and towns across a wide area.

Rescuers are still scrambling to reach thousands of survivors who have spent two cold nights in the open.

See a map of the affected area

The official death toll is 215, but officials fear that more people than that have died, says the BBC’s Charles Haviland in Islamabad.

Many people buried their close relatives soon after their deaths, making any accurate count difficult.

A health officer in Ziarat, the worst-affected area, has also stressed that some remote villages have not yet been has surveyed.

Aftershocks

Some survivors say that many villages away from main roads have only slowly and belatedly been receiving food, blankets and tents from the relief teams sent by the government.

Military helicopters are being used to reach mountainous and remote locations, where some villages have been cut off by landslides.

“The earthquake destroyed our houses, but now the government’s slow response is killing us,” Moosa Kaleem, a survivor in Ziarat, told the Associated Press news agency.

“We cannot spend another night in this chilling weather, especially the kids.”

Several hundred aftershocks have been felt since the main earthquake.

“I know these are aftershocks and not new earthquakes, and I also know these tremors may continue for a while but it is hard to convince children that they will be safe,” Amjad Aziz, a teacher in Ziarat who has been sleeping in his car since the quake, told AP.

The aftershocks have also been felt in the city of Quetta.

There, hospital patients – including people injured in the quake – are lying on the ground or on beds in the open air, as staff do not consider it safe to stay indoors.

The shocks are still causing widespread alarm, and some people have left the city for rural areas.

BBC NEWS

Continue reading »]]> ZIARAT, Pakistan – A strong earthquake struck before dawn Wednesday in impoverished southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 170 people and turning mud and timber homes into rubble.

An estimated 15,000 people were left homeless, and rescuers were digging for survivors in a remote valley in Baluchistan, the remote province bordering Afghanistan where the magnitude 6.4 quake struck.

Officials said they were distributing thousands of tents, blankets and food packages and sending in earth-moving equipment to dig mass graves. Many of those who survived were left with little more than the clothes they had slept in, and with winter approaching, temperatures were expected to drop to around freezing in coming nights.

Worst-hit was the former British hilltop resort of Ziarat and about eight surrounding villages, where hundreds of houses were destroyed, including some buried in landslides triggered by the quake.

“There is great destruction,” said Ziarat Mayor Dilawar Kakar. “Not a single house is intact.”

Aftershocks rattled the area throughout the day, including one estimated at magnitude 6.2 in the late afternoon. There were no reports of additional casualties or damage.

Kakar said the death toll from the quake was 170, with 375 injured. Around 15,000 people lost their homes, he said.

Kakar appealed to “the whole world” for help, but the head of Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority said an international relief effort would not likely be necessary.

In the village of Sohi, a reporter for AP Television News saw the bodies of 17 people killed in one collapsed house and 12 from another. Distraught residents were digging a mass grave in which to bury them.

“We can’t dig separate graves for each of them, as the number of deaths is high and still people are searching in the rubble” of many other homes, said Shamsullah Khan, a village elder.

Other survivors sat stunned in the open.

Hospitals in the nearby town of Kawas and the provincial capital Quetta, 50 miles away, were flooded with the dead and injured. One patient, Raz Mohammed, said he was awoken by the sound of his children crying before he felt a jolt.

“I rushed toward them but the roof of my own room collapsed and the main iron support hit me,” he told an AP reporter in Quetta Civil Hospital. “That thing broke my back and I am in severe pain but thank God my children and relatives are safe.”

Farooq Ahmad Khan, head of the disaster authority, said 2,000 houses were destroyed and that teams were scrambling to erect shelters for 2,500 to 3,000 people.

The main quake struck at 5:10 a.m. local time and had a preliminary magnitude of 6.4, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. It was a shallow 10 miles below the surface and was centered about 400 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan is prone to violent seismic upheavals. Wednesday’s quake was the deadliest since a magnitude-7.6 quake devastated Kashmir and northern Pakistan in October 2005, killing about 80,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

A temblor of magnitude 7.5 that hit Quetta in 1935 killed more than 30,000 people.

Baluchistan is home to a long-running separatist movement, but is not considered a major battleground in the fight against Taliban insurgents that plague other border regions.

Ziarat, a hilltop resort ringed with juniper forests, has long attracted summer visitors. British officials retreated there from Quetta when the area was part of British India. Pakistanis flock to the former residence of Pakistan’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and the shrine of a revered saint.

Yahoo! News

Continue reading »]]> PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A suicide blast at an anti-Taliban tribal meeting in a restive Pakistani region bordering Afghanistan on Friday killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens, security officials said.

The explosion happened a day after a force of pro-government tribesmen destroyed two militant hideouts in the Orakzai district, one of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal regions, they said.

“Initial reports from the area say that a bomber struck at a meeting of a tribal lashkar (force), killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens more,” a security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

15 dead in suicide blast at Pakistan tribal meeting: officials – Yahoo! News

Continue reading »]]> Rescuers picked their way yesterday through the smouldering ruins of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, looking for more bodies after a huge bomb devastated the building in one of Pakistan’s worst terrorist attacks.

The death toll last night stood at 53, with 266 wounded, after a bomber blew up a lorry containing 600kg of explosive on Saturday evening. The corpse of Ivo Zdarek, the Czech Ambassador, was among the bodies pulled from the rubble. Mr Zdarek, 47, only moved to Islamabad in August. Two Americans, said to be US Defence Department employees, were also killed in the blast but their identities were not revealed.

The blast came after dusk on Saturday, when hundreds of people were dining in several restaurants inside the hotel. Closed-circuit TV footage showed the driver of the lorry ramming into the hotel’s security gates but failing to breach a second barrier.

Rehman Malik, an Interior Ministry official, said that the attacker intended to drive into the lobby of the hotel and had apparently tried to convince the guards to lower the second barrier. When they would not, he blew himself up in the lorry’s cabin. The guards then tried to put out the fire in the lorry, and it was several minutes before the second, enormous blast devastated the Marriott.

Abdur Rehman, 45, who was on security duty, said: “The bomber fired several shots in the air when we tried to stop him, scaring us all away. Then after a few minutes the truck exploded with a massive blast, setting the building on fire.” Mohammed Latif, a private car driver, saw the incident from the hotel car park. “The entire area was engulfed in thick smoke and pieces of glass and debris was flying all over,” he said. “People, many of them stained in blood, came rushing out from a side gate.”

Akbar Khan, a World Bank employee, was dining with two of his friends at one of the hotel’s restaurants when he heard a thud. “Minutes after, there was a huge blast and the lights went off. Then the ceiling fell on us.” Mr Khan, whose head and arms were injured, added: “I saw people scaling 12ft walls at the back of the hotel to save their lives.”

Rescue teams searched the blackened building room by room but were hampered by fires still burning in some areas 24 hours after the explosion. “There could be some charred bodies inside,” a senior official said.

At least two Britons were among the hundreds wounded in the attack, which had the luxury hotel in the capital’s high-security zone in flames for several hours, completely destroying the five-storey building. Both were discharged from hospital after treatment for minor injuries.

At the entrance to the Marriott, a favourite haunt of foreigners, journalists and wealthy Pakistanis, a crater 50ft wide and 20ft deep bore witness to the power of the explosion.

Many of the victims were killed or injured by the intense heat of the blast, which also burst gas pipelines. “Bodies were charred beyond recognition,” said a rescue worker. Doctors at the city’s main hospital said that the death toll could rise with dozens of wounded in a critical condition.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but investigators said that the attack bore the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda operation. “The purpose was to destabilise democracy,” Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Prime Minister, said. He added that Chechen, Uzbek or Arab militants operating from the border areas could have been involved.

Mr Gilani said that the bomber had attacked the Marriott only after tight security prevented him from reaching the Parliament building or the Prime Minister’s office, which are only a few hundred yards from the hotel. The explosion took place just two hours after President Zardari had made his first address to Parliament, calling for terrorism to be rooted out. Mr Gilani, Mr Zardari, the chief of army staff and MPs were at a state dinner half a mile away when the bomb went off.

The Interior Minister suggested that Tehrik e-Taleban e-Pakistan (TTP), an outlawed militant group operating from the lawless tribal area, was involved in the attack.

Continue reading »]]> ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — The Czech Republic’s ambassador to Pakistan has been missing since a deadly blast Saturday night at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the Czech News Agency reported.

Ivo Zdarek, 47, moved from Vietnam to Pakistan a month ago and was staying at the hotel, the national news agency said. It attributed its information to officials at the Czech foreign ministry.

He is married with two sons, according to the Web site of the Czech Embassy in Hanoi, where he was most recently posted.

The Czech Embassy would not confirm the report to CNN on Sunday.

The suicide truck bombing shook the heart of the capital city, killing dozens and wounding at least 200. It occurred at about 7:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. ET), after the breaking of the fast during the holy month of Ramadan and the address by newly elected President Asif Zardari to a joint session of Parliament.

The Western hotel is located near the diplomatic section of the city near the compound that contains the parliament building, the prime minister’s house, the Supreme Court and the presidency. The hotel is popular among tourists and was packed on Saturday night.

The Marriott, where a standard room costs more than $300 per night, has been the site of attacks in the past. Any vehicle entering the facility is searched and its underside checked for bombs before being allowed to pass through heavy steel gates.

Authorities received a threat two days ago, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. “We had taken all security measures,” he said. “There was heavy security in the city.”

Among the dead were two foreigners, Pakistan’s Information Secretary told the Associated Press of Pakistan, which reported another 21 foreigners were wounded.

Initial casualty figures on the bombing were unclear and sometimes conflicting.

Police and government spokesman Farhatullah Babar said at least 40 people were dead, while Information Ministry spokesman Akram Shaheedi told APP Sunday that the death toll stood at 37, with 236 injured.

GEO TV’s Hamid Mir, who was at the blast site, said he saw at least 52 bodies.

A spokesman for the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Dr. Wasim Khawaja, said the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad confirmed to him that an American was among the dead, and another was wounded.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said all U.S. diplomats had been accounted for.

The British High Commission in Islamabad said four British nationals were being treated for wounds suffered in the blast. Two dependents of staff members were treated and released.

A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry said that six Germans in the hotel were slightly hurt in the attack and that all embassy personnel were accounted for.

Most of the dead appeared to be drivers, who were waiting with their cars outside the Marriott, and hotel staff, most of them security guards, Geo TV’s Mir said.

Mir said a witness reported seeing a small car ram open the hotel gates and then a truck carrying explosives, which detonated. “They were able to come right up to the hotel, close to the seat of power,” Mir reported.

Initial reports indicated that an attacker or attackers drove a small truck with explosives through the hotel gate, Babar said. Police had earlier said it was a car bombing.

The hotel manager offered a different story, telling reporters the blast occurred outside the hotel’s gates.

The explosion felled trees, and video showed a deep crater in the pavement where the bomb presumably detonated. More than a dozen cars were reduced to twisted steel.

CNN’s Reza Sayah was inside a building more than two miles from the hotel when he felt the blast.

“It was a roaring rumble that would not stop. Seconds later, the windows shattered.”