by Our Foreign Desk

MORE than 180 people were killed in south Asia yesterday when a 7.5-magnitude earthquake centered in northern Afghanistan shook the region.

Pakistani officials said that at least 147 people had been killed and nearly 600 others wounded, while Afghan officials said 33 people had been killed and more than 200 wounded.

According to the US Geological Survey the earthquake’s epicentre was 130 miles underground and 45 miles south of Fayzabad, provincial capital of Badakhshan, a sparsely populated province in the Hindu Kush mountain range that borders Pakistan, Tajikistan and China.

In Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial minister Inayatullah Khan said that the death toll in his province alone had reached 121.

In Takhar province, west of Badakhshan, at least 12 students at a girls’ school were killed in a stampede as they fled shaking buildings.

Another 42 girls were taken to the hospital in the provincial capital of Taluqan.

The toll from Badakhshan was likely to rise as reports came in from remote areas.

Pakistani Information Minister Pervez Rashid said that Pakistan would not issue any appeals to the international community for help as the country had the required resources to carry out the rescue and relief work.

But he also thanked neighbouring India for offering support to Islamabad for the quake victims.

Mr Rashid said that Pakistani authorities were trying their best to reach those affected by the quake.

“We have enough resources to handle the situation,” he told a news conference. “Our top priority is to help those affected because of the earthquake.”