Quake kills more than 18,000 in South Asia
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-09 18:10

For hours, aftershocks rattled an area stretching from Afghanistan across northern Pakistan into India's portion of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Hospitals moved quake victims onto lawns, fearing tremors could cause more damage, and many people spent the night in the open.

An aerial view of a collapse building in Islamabad. A huge earthquake measuring at least 7.6 on the Richter Scale has shaken northern Pakistan and India, causing substantial damage and warnings of many casualties. [AFP]

The earthquake, which struck just before 9 a.m. Saturday, caused buildings to sway for about a minute in the capitals of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, an area some 625 miles across. Panicked people ran from homes and offices, and communications were cut to many areas.

Most of the devastation occurred in the mountains of northern Pakistan, where the dead included 250 girls crushed at a school and 200 soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of the capital, Islamabad, in the forested mountains of Pakistani Kashmir, and was followed by 22 aftershocks, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor.

"It is a national tragedy," Sultan said earlier. "This is the worst earthquake in recent times."

In Mansehra, about 90 miles northwest of the Pakistani capital, a shopowner named Haji Fazal Ilahi stood vigil over the body of his 14-year-old daughter, which lay under a sheet on a hospital mattress. He said his wife, another daughter and a brother also died when the family's house fell.

"I could see rocks and homes tumbling down the mountains," said Ilahi, who was driving to his village of Garlat when the quake struck. "When I reached my village, there was nothing left of my home."