Hunt for survivors as Afghan, Pakistan quake toll tops 350

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earthquakeISLAMABAD, Oct 27, (Agencies): Rescuers were Tuesday picking their way through rugged terrain and pockets of Taliban insurgency in the search for survivors after a massive quake hit Pakistan and Afghanistan, killing more than 350 people. The toll was expected to rise as search teams reach remote areas that were cut off by Monday’s powerful 7.5 magnitude quake, which triggered landslides and stampedes as it toppled buildings and severed communication lines.

A police official in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar told AFP they had not been able to get in touch with authorities in the district of Kohistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to see how its population of nearly half a million people had fared. “There is no way to communicate with the officials in Kohistan, the communication system has been disrupted and roads blocked so we cannot say anything about the damage there,” the official told AFP. Authorities were also still struggling to ascertain the damage in the northern district of Chitral, where a local official said the quake had damaged the water supply system.

“Around 80,000 people don’t have access to clean drinking water and it’s our top priority to restore the water supply,” he said. In other remote areas residents — including children and the elderly — were helping with relief work, many of them digging through rubble for survivors. Meanwhile, His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah sent cables of condolences Tuesday to Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain and Afghanistan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, expressing his sincere sympathy over the victims of yesterday’s earthquake that targeted areas in both countries. In his cables, His Highness the Amir extended his profound condolences to the victims’ families, expressing his hopes for speedy recovery to the injured.

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