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A POWERFUL earthquake that hit the mountainous region near the India-Pakistan frontier today has killed 174 people in Indian Kashmir and
injured more than 600, a senior government official said.
Earlier Indian authorities had said the quake left 24 civilians and 16 soldiers dead and put more than 300 people in hospital.
"Fifteen of the soldiers died along the Line of Control (LoC)," army spokesman P Sehgal told AFP, referring to the de facto border dividing Kashmir
between India and Pakistan.
THIRTY-five people were feared killed when a courtroom and two schools collapsed in northern Pakistan during a huge quake, police and officials
said.
"We have reports that a court building collapsed in Muzaffarabad and some 25 people are feared dead," a police official told AFP.
Police in northern Mansehra district said buildings of two high schools collapsed and rescuers have recovered 10 bodies out of the debris. "Some 40
injured were also recovered," a police official said.
THE death toll in Pakistan from a huge earthquake today could reach into the hundreds, the head of the country's national crisis management
centre told AFP.
Most of the deaths were in the northern area of Mansehra and from Pakistan's sector of the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir, Brigadier Javed
Cheema said.
"The death toll could be in hundreds," he added. "The maximum number of casualties have been reported from areas in Mansehra district,
Muzaffarabad, Rawlakot and Bagh in Kashmir," he said.
A policeman in Mansehra, Iqbal Ahmed, said "90 per cent" of the houses in three towns in Mansehra division have been razed to the ground.
Officials have earlier said that an entire village in Bagh district was "wiped out", while rescuers are searching through the rubble of a collapsed
apartment building in the capital Islamabad.
A POWERFUL earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale left at least 15 soldiers and eight civilians dead and put more than 200 people in
hospital today in Indian Kashmir, authorities said.
The quake also cause widespread damage and casualties in Pakistan.
"The soldiers died along the Line of Control," Indian army spokesman P Sehgal said, referring to the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India
and Pakistan.
He said some of the army's forward posts caved in, while others were hit by falling trees and landslides. "There can be more casualties," he
said.
Thousands of army soldiers man the Line of Control to prevent Muslim rebels entering Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani zone.
One of the civilian victims was an eight-month old Muslim boy who was buried when a wall of a house collapsed in Srinagar, residents said.
"Seven more people have died elsewhere in Srinagar and other parts of the state," a police spokesman said.
Doctors at Srinagar's main hospital said more than 200 people were admitted with injuries and shock after the quake rattled the region.
An AFP photographer saw some half dozen houses damaged by the tremors in northern Baramulla town where ambulances were ferrying the injured to
hospital.
KASHMIRIS poured into the streets in panic today as a powerful earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale rattled the region, killing a baby
boy and injuring 50 people in northern India.
The quake, centred about 100km north of the Pakistan capital Islamabad, has also killed dozens of people in Pakistan.
Screams were heard from across Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, as people fled homes, shops and offices fearing they would be buried
under rubble.
The eight-month-old Muslim boy died when a wall of his house collapsed in the city, residents said.
Men spontaneously started reading out verses from the Koran, the Muslim holy book, and women beat their chests in a traditional display of
bereavement.
"Thanks to Allah today is Saturday. Had it been Friday many would have died of heart attacks," Aminbin Khaliq, a shopkeeper, said.
Muslims, observing the fasting month of Ramadan, widely believe the day of resurrection will come on Friday.
"This is the strongest earthquake I have ever witnessed in my life," Srinagar resident Aisha Begum, 84, said.
AN earthquake measuring at least 7.6 on the Richter Scale sowed terror across parts of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan today, causing "huge
devastation" and bringing warnings of heavy casualties.
The quake struck early in the morning almost directly on the dividing line between the Indian and Pakistani controlled zones of Kashmir, sending
terrified residents fleeing into the streets in towns and villages across the region.
A senior Pakistani official told AFP dozens of people were feared dead in northern areas and the toll was expected to rise substantially.
"There are reports of buildings collapsing in several cities in central Pakistan. We have no exact estimates but the casualties could be very high,"
the official told AFP, asking to remain anonymous.
"It is massive devastation, we are still assessing damage and casualties," another government official told AFP.
The Pakistani military said an entire village in Kashmir had been destroyed
I think that as time goes on the toll will rise sharply like after the tsunami last year. If anyone did subscribe to the HAARP theory, I would say
this quake would fit snugly on the plate.
It is the time I posted that larger quakes were expected with the world being in the middle of both a solar and lunar eclipse within two weeks.
(AP) A magnitude 7.6 earthquake rocked parts of India, Pakistan and
Afghanistan on Saturday, causing some casualties. Part of a 19-story building collapsed in the Pakistani capital. 
I really hope for minimal casualties, and thank God nukes are quake proof. Right? 
from the horible stuff I have heard in ATS you must be the biggest loser of them all really, how can you decide what a NATION SHOULD BE NAMED
AFTER YOU TERRORISTs. 
