10/29/2008 Pakistan Earthquake

Updated 10/30/2008
A 6.4 Magnitude earthquake hit near Ziarat, Pakistan at 23:10 GMT on September 28, 2008. 4:10 AM, September 29, local time. A 2nd quake, almost as strong followed about an hour later, and there have been several strong aftershocks. The epicenter was 400 Miles West of Islamabad, 35 miles NW of Quetta and 115 miles SE of Kandahar. Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, is a city with a population of 535,000 in western Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. There are also an estimated million Afghan refugees in the area.
The death toll is at 215, with up to 50,000 homeless. The government is using helicopters to reach the affected areas. Some villages were cut off by landslides and many houses have been destroyed. The quake occured in the predawn hours and victims were buried as they slept. There is a great need for shelter and supplies. People have been sitting outside and are hungry and cold. The Red Cross distributed 2,300 tents with many more needed. India, the US and the UN have all pledged aid. Help is also being provided by Islamic organizations in the area, including Jamat-ud-Dawa, which also helped in the aftermath of the Kashmir quake in 2005.
The quake is caused, in the broad scheme of things by the collision, on a continental scale, of India and Asia. India was a separate land mass that has during the last few million years, moved across the Indian Ocean and is currently slamming into southern Asia. The energy from that collision raised the Himalayas and radiates out from there, causing often destructive earthquakes. In 1935 an earthquake in the same general area killed 30.000 people.
(See the Plate Tectonics page for more information on these processes.) The US Geological Survey (USGS) is an invaluable resource in understanding and tracking earthquakes. See the USGS summary of this quake .
See also the following news stories:
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