Powerful quake jolts southwestern Pakistan

PanARMENIAN.Net - A major earthquake struck Tuesday, Sept 24, in southwestern Pakistan, killing two people and sending others fleeing into the streets and praying for their lives as buildings swayed, officials said, according to the Associated Press.

The province in southwest Pakistan is the country's largest but also the least populated.

At least two people were killed and five others were injured when more than two dozen houses collapsed in villages of Awaran district where the quake struck, said the district's deputy commissioner Abdur Rasheed. He said rescue teams have been dispatched to the area.

The magnitude 7.7 quake hit in the southern part of Baluchistan province, said Pakistan's chief meteorologist, Mohammed Riaz. The U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. reported the quake as magnitude 7.8.

The quake struck in a remote area of Baluchistan with little population, said the head of Pakistan's Earthquake Center, Zahid Rafi. He warned of possible aftershocks.

The quake was felt in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, along the Arabian Sea. People in the city's tall office buildings rushed into the streets following the tremor, and Pakistani television showed images of lights swaying as the earth moved.

Baluchistan and neighboring Iran are prone to earthquakes.

A magnitude 7.8, which was centered just across the border in Iran, killed at least 35 people in Pakistan last April.

In January 2011, a 7.2 magnitude quake damaged 200 mud-brick homes in a remote area of Baluchistan about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of Quetta, not far from the Afghan border but caused no casualties.