Hungry survivors dug through rubble to find food and thousands slept under the open sky or in makeshift shelters for a second night as the death toll from Pakistan’s massive earthquake rose to at least 348 yesterday.
Rescuers battled to reach remote areas of the impoverished region in the wake of Tuesday’s magnitude 7.7 quake in the country’s southwestern Baluchistan Province.
The quake flattened wide swathes of the Awaran District where it was centered, leaving much of the population there homeless.
Baluchistan Province Government spokesman Jan Mohammad Bulaidi said that 348 people have been confirmed dead so far and 552 were injured.
In the village of Dalbadi, almost all of the 300 mud brick homes were destroyed. Noor Ahmad said he was working when the quake struck and rushed home to find his house leveled and his wife and son dead.
“I’m broken,” he said. “I have lost my family.”
Doctors in the village treated some of the injured, but due to a scarcity of medicine and staff, they were mostly seen comforting the survivors.
Awaran District is one of the most destitute in the country’s most impoverished province.
Many people use four-wheel drive vehicles and camels to traverse the rough terrain.
Houses made of mostly mud and handmade bricks in the quake-affected region stood little chance against the massive quake. Walls and roofs caved in, and people’s possessions were scattered on the ground.
Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest province, but also the least populated. Medical facilities are few and often poorly stocked with supplies and qualified personnel. Awaran District has about 300,000 residents spread out over 29,000km2.
Many of the injured were ferried to the port city of Karachi or Quetta, the provincial capital, for treatment.
One survivor interviewed in his Karachi hospital bed said was working in the fields of his farm when the quake struck.
“Almost all the homes have collapsed in my village,” Sabal Khan said, adding that his wife was badly injured.
The area’s local economy consists mostly of smuggling fuel from Iran or harvesting dates.
The area where the quake struck is at the center of an insurgency that Baluch separatists have been waging against the Pakistani government for years.
The separatists regularly attack Pakistani troops and symbols of the state, such as infrastructure projects.
It is also prone to earthquakes. A magnitude 7.8 quake centered just across the border in Iran killed at least 35 people in Pakistan in April last year.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was