A strong earthquake has jolted parts of southern Asian from Kabul to New Delhi, killing a child in Pakistan and forcing thousands to flee homes in panic.
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The 6.1-magnitude tremor struck on Wednesday afternoon at a depth of 191.2 km in the Hindukush mountainous region of Afghanistan bordering the Pakistani town of Chitral, the US Geological Survey said.
At least one child was killed and eight people were wounded when the roofs of several houses collapsed in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, according to Asmat Ullah from the provincial disaster management agency.
Authorities were in the process of assessing the losses, Ullah said, adding that it might take the rescue agencies hours to reach some of the remote areas.
At least four schoolgirls were injured in a stampede that followed in the northwestern city of Peshawar, local official Tauseefur Rehman said.
People in the capital Islamabad and other parts of the country ran out of their houses, shops and offices in panic after the earthquake struck around lunchtime.
"It was scary. We all ran out. We thought roofs and walls are going to fall on us," said Adeel Ahmed from the northern town of Balakot, where a major earthquake in 2005 killed 80,000 people in the worst disaster ever in Pakistan's history.
In Afghanistan, a spokesman for the disaster management agency said officials were assessing the damage but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
It might be difficult for the authorities to reach outlying regions during the harsh winter after days of snowfall, especially in the province of Badakhshan, where the epicentre lies.
