The powerful earthquake that hit Tuesday in the southwestern region of Pakistan has now claimed over 325 lives. Officials said they have found areas where hundreds of homes built out of mud collapsed with people inside in the thinly populated remote areas of the region.
Hundreds of army soldiers were air lifted to help in the aftermath of the country’s worst earthquake since 2005. In that quake, more than 75,000 people lost their lives in the northern part of the country.
The earthquake on Tuesday was a magnitude 7.7 and hit Baluchistan, a large province that is prone to earthquakes, which has rugged mountains and large deserts. Most of Southern Asia felt the quake.
The quake destroyed many homes and cut off communications with Awaran, the district that was most affected and was so strong it created a tiny island to form just off the coast of Pakistan in the Arabian Sea.
In the Awaran district alone, more than 285 bodies were recovered said the district’s deputy commissioner. The town has a population of approximately 200,000.
In the district of Kech, near Awaran, another 42 bodies had been found, said authorities.
The national disaster authority in Pakistan said the death toll was 259 by Wednesday evening, but others said it was much higher.
Rescue groups found it difficult to reach many remote locations and some authorities said the loss of life would increase, as workers were able to reach areas that were further up in the mountains and assess all the damage.
A local journalist described seeing chaos and grief in small villages, saying those who survived were digging graves.
He said as far as he could see in the distance, all the houses had been flattened by the quake.
Tuesday’s quake hit when Pakistanis were still mourning the loss of life of over 80 Christians from a Sunday attack by a suicide bomber in an Anglican Church in Peshawar.