Summary Rescuers struggle to reach thousands of injured and homeless in biggest earthquake since 2005.
QUETTA (Reuters) - The death toll from a powerful earthquake in southwest Pakistan rose to 348 on Wednesday after hundreds of mud houses collapsed on residents throughout the remote and thinly populated area, local officials said.
Pakistan s army airlifted hundreds of soldiers to help with the aftermath of the worst earthquake in the South Asian country since 2005, when about 75,000 people were killed in the country s north.
Tuesday s earthquake of magnitude 7.7 struck Baluchistan, a huge earthquake-prone province of deserts and rugged mountains, and was felt across South Asia.
It destroyed houses and cut communications with the worst affected district of Awaran, and was so powerful it caused a small island to emerge from the Arabian Sea, just off the Pakistani coast.
"Two hundred and eighty-five bodies have so far been recovered in the Awaran district," Abdul Rasheed Gogazai, the deputy commissioner of Awaran, the worst affected town, with a population of about 200,000, told Reuters.
"And 42 bodies were found in the neighbouring Kech district. We have started to bury the dead."
The spokesman of the government s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Kamran Zia, put the death toll at 259 by early Wednesday evening.
Rescue teams found it hard to reach the remote location quickly, and some officials said the death toll was likely to rise as emergency workers fanned further into the mountains to assess the damage.
Mohammad Shabir, a journalist, described scenes of grief and chaos in villages, saying survivors were digging rows of graves and picking through the debris.
"As far as the human eye can see, all the houses here have been flattened," he told Reuters from Awaran, adding that rescue teams were distributing supplies.
To the south, on the beach near Gwadar port, crowds of bewildered residents gathered to witness the rare phenomenon of an island that the quake thrust up out of the sea.
The island would not survive long because sea waves would eventually break it down, the NDMA spokesman said. "This is not a permanent structure, just a body of mud," he added. "It will disappear over time."
Rescuers struggled Wednesday to help thousands of people injured and left homeless after their houses collapsed in a massive earthquake in southwestern Pakistan the day before as the death toll rose overnight to at least 210.
The earth moved with enough force to create a small island visible off the southern coast after the huge tremor, said Pakistani officials.
The magnitude 7.7 quake struck in the remote district of Awaran in Pakistan s Baluchistan province on Tuesday afternoon. Such a quake is considered major, capable of widespread and heavy damage.
The Additional Home Secretary in Baluchistan, Zahid bin Maqsood, put the death toll at 210 and said 375 people had been injured, while a spokesman for the provincial government, Jan Mohammad Bulaidi, put the death toll at 250 conflicting figures likely due to the difficulty in contacting local officials and people in the remote region.
"We are finding it very difficult to reach the affected remote areas," said Bulaidi. "We need more tents, more medicine and more food."
He described a horrific scene of people who lost limbs in the quake and who will need to be sent to hospitals in major cities of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, and Karachi along the Arabian Sea.
The quake flattened wide swathes of Awaran, the district where it was centered. Most of the victims were killed when their houses collapsed.
Associated Press images from the village of Kaich showed the devastation that the massive quake had wrought.
Houses made mostly of mud and handmade bricks had collapsed, walls and roofs caved in and people s possessions scattered on the ground. A few goats roamed through the wreckage as men dug through the rubble.
In images shown on Pakistani television, an unidentified man who appeared to be injured in his leg was shown supported by two men helping him walk. He said he was drinking tea when he heard a loud bang: "It shook everything."
In Pakistani cities such as Karachi and Quetta people ran into the streets in fear, praying for their lives when the quake hit.
The Pakistani military said it had rushed almost 1,000 troops to the area overnight and was sending helicopters as well. A convoy of 60 Pakistani army trucks left Karachi early Wednesday, carrying supplies for those affected by the quake.
Pakistani forces have evacuated 174 people from various villages around Awaran to the district hospital, the military said in a statement.
Local officials said they were sending doctors, food and 1,000 tents for people who had nowhere to sleep as strong aftershocks continued to shake the region.
The United Nations said in a statement that it mourned the victims and was in close contact with the Pakistani government to provide help if needed.
Baluchistan is Pakistan s largest province but also the least populated and most impoverished. Medical facilities are few and far between and often poorly stocked with medicine or qualified personnel.
Awaran district has about 300,000 residents spread out over 29,000 square kilometers (11,197 sq. miles).
