PESHAWAR / GILGIT: A soldier was killed in Mohmand tribal region and a woman in Ghizer, while at least 85 other people were injured across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Gilgit-Baltistan when an earthquake shook parts of the country on Friday night.
According to the Metrological Department, earthquake measuring about 6.9 originated at 12.14am at a depth of 197 kilometres along the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border.
An official said the tremors lasted around 50 seconds. At least two minor aftershocks were recorded on Saturday morning.
Sepoy Waqar was killed and another soldier injured when the roof of an army post collapsed in Biazai tehsil of Mohmand Agency along the Afghan border.
Assistant Political Agent in Ghalanai Haseebur Rehman Khalil told Dawn the injured sepoy had been taken to the Mamad Gat Hospital.
In Gilgit-Baltistan, an expecting mother was killed and her husband and two children, aged two and four years, were injured when their house collapsed in Phander area of Ghizer district.
Local people retrieved the body from the rubble and took the injured to a government hospital.
The GB Disaster Management Authority’s Director General Asim Raza said the damage was being assessed and “we are in contact with the regional government to take every possible measure to provide relief to the affected”.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Disaster Management Authority’s spokesman Latifur Rehman said most of the people injured in the province had been discharged from hospitals after initial treatment because they had suffered minor injuries.
He said at least 48 people had been injured in Peshawar, eight each in Hangu and Mardan and 27 in Swat district.
He said assessment of the damaged houses would be carried out by the district administrations across the province.
The spokesman said the district administrations had been asked to provide relief to the affected people.
Rescue 1122 spokesman Bilal Faizi said the rescuers had responded to at least 20 emergencies in the provincial capital and almost all of them were related to shock, high blood pressure or tripping while rushing towards open places.
In Swat, eight women and a child were among the 27 people reported injured in the earthquake.
According to an official at the Saidu Teaching Hospital, 15 injured people were admitted while 12 were released after first aid.
An earthquake on Oct 26 of 7.5 magnitude had killed at least 188 people in 13 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Phander in GB was also among the most affected areas.
The United States Geological Survey reported the fresh earthquake’s magnitude at 6.4 whereas Indian authorities claimed that it was 6.8.
“We believe that our record is correct because we are the closest to the point of origin,” an official of the Met Office said.
He said Pakistan had a base to observe seismic activities in Cherat, Chitral, and an advanced seismic station in Patan area of Swat.
The tremor was more troublesome for the people because they had to rush out of their homes late at night in a freezing weather.
Our Peshawar Bureau, correspondents in Mohmand, Swat and Gilgit; and reporter in Islamabad contributed to the report