CNews Peshawar-- At least 50 people were killed and another 30 injured when a magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck southwestern Pakistan near the city of Quetta today, the country's largest ambulance service said.
``The death toll may rise because our ambulances are still coming in,'' Yousuf Jamali, a spokesman for the Edhi Foundation, said by telephone today from Quetta.
A landslide in Ziarat, a tourist resort about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east-northeast of Quetta, killed 17 people, Dilawar Hussain Shah, an official at police control in Quetta said, citing reports from local people. More deaths were reported from Pishin town and its neighboring villages, he said.
The quake hit at 4:09 a.m. local time in a mountainous region about 60 kilometers north-northeast of Quetta at a depth of 15 kilometers, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake hit about 185 kilometers southeast of the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
Quetta, located about 1,500 kilometers southwest of Islamabad, is the capital of Baluchistan, the country's biggest province by area and smallest by population. The city was leveled in 1935 by a magnitude-7.6 quake that left about 30,000 people dead, according to the USGS Web site.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are located in a zone where the Eurasian, Arabian and Indo-Australian tectonic plates meet and rub together, sometimes producing earthquakes. More than 86,000 people were killed in northern Pakistan when a magnitude-7.6 quake hit in October 2005.
``The death toll may rise because our ambulances are still coming in,'' Yousuf Jamali, a spokesman for the Edhi Foundation, said by telephone today from Quetta.
A landslide in Ziarat, a tourist resort about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east-northeast of Quetta, killed 17 people, Dilawar Hussain Shah, an official at police control in Quetta said, citing reports from local people. More deaths were reported from Pishin town and its neighboring villages, he said.
The quake hit at 4:09 a.m. local time in a mountainous region about 60 kilometers north-northeast of Quetta at a depth of 15 kilometers, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake hit about 185 kilometers southeast of the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
Quetta, located about 1,500 kilometers southwest of Islamabad, is the capital of Baluchistan, the country's biggest province by area and smallest by population. The city was leveled in 1935 by a magnitude-7.6 quake that left about 30,000 people dead, according to the USGS Web site.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are located in a zone where the Eurasian, Arabian and Indo-Australian tectonic plates meet and rub together, sometimes producing earthquakes. More than 86,000 people were killed in northern Pakistan when a magnitude-7.6 quake hit in October 2005.
