Chairman NDMA Lt General Inam Haider Malik has dispatched three tons of emergency relief consignment to Turkiye and Syria through PAF C-130 on orders of Prime Minister Shehbaz Shareef. The confirmed death toll across the two countries has soared above 4,300 after a swarm of strong tremors near the Turkiye-Syria border — the largest of which measured at a massive 7.8-magnitude.
The northern areas of the country were jolted by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake on Friday, according to the National Seismic Monitoring Centre in Islamabad. The earthquake struck with the epicentre being a sparsely populated , remote mountain area in Badakhshan province in the northeast of Afghanistan with a depth of 210 kilometres. The effected areas include Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad, Murree, Mansehra, Battagram, Chiniot, and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The earthquake affected area of Mirpur experienced another aftershock, as unexpected rainfall put relief work to a halt. Pakistan’s top meteorologist, Mohammad Riaz, said the epicentre of the 4.4-magnitude tremor was 12 kilometres deep. The shallow tremor sent terrified people running into the streets as area residents huddled in the streets following the quake, some still barefoot, while others recited verses from the Holy Quran.
At least 37 people are now confirmed dead in the devastating earthquake that rocked Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s (AJK) Mirpur a day earlier as aftershocks continue in the region. The 5.6-magnitude earthquake – which also shook several cities of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) – injured 459 people of which the condition of 160 is reportedly critical, confirmed Mirpur’s district administration. Pakistan Army has started relief work in the area.