REPORT: Massive quake in southwest Pakistan kills 327, creates island

                  
The death toll from a powerful earthquake in southwestern Pakistan rose to 327 people on Wednesday, local officials said.        

"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 area, told Reuters.            

"And 42 bodies were found in the neighbouring Kech district," he added.

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.                    

It was felt as far away as New Delhi, the Indian capital, some 1,200 kilometers (about 740 miles) away, but no damage or injuries were immediately reported there.
                  
The quake flattened wide swathes of Awaran, the district where it was centered. Most of the victims were killed when their houses collapsed.                   

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.                       

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.                  

Pakistani officials were investigating a small island that appeared off the coast of Pakistan after the quake, apparently the result of earth and mud pushed to the surface by the quake.                  
Gwadar Police Chief Pervez Umrani said people gathered on the beach to see the land mass.                  
The head of the Geological Survey of Pakistan confirmed that the mass was created by the quake and said scientists were trying to determine how it happened. Zahid Rafi said such masses are sometimes created by the movement of gases locked in the earth under the sea, pushing mud and earth up to the surface in something akin to a mud volcano.                     

A Pakistani Navy team reached the island by midday Wednesday, navy geologist Mohammed Danish told the country's Geo Television. He said the mass was about 60 feet (18 meters) high, 100 feet (30 meters) long and 250 feet (76 meters) wide.                    

Such land masses have appeared before off Pakistan's coast, said Muhammed Arshad, a hydrographer with the navy. After quakes in 1999 and 2010, new land masses rose up along a different part of the coast about 282 kilometers (175 miles) east of Gwadar, he said.                

He said each of those disappeared back into the sea within a year during the monsoon season, a period of heavy rain and wind that sweeps Pakistan every summer. He said that in the area where the island was created on Tuesday, the sea is only about six to seven meters (23 feet) deep.                


AP/REUTERS

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