A strong 5.7 magnitude aftershock on Wednesday rocked a remote region of Balochistan province where an earthquake killed dozens and flattened hundreds of houses even as Pakistani troops raced to provide aid to victims.
The epicentre of Tuesday’s 7.8 magnitude quake lay in southeast Iran but most of the deaths reported so far have been reported across the border in Balochistan, where hundreds of mud brick homes were destroyed in Mashkel town and surrounding villages.
The region was rocked on Wednesday morning by a powerful aftershock that measured 5.7 on the Richter scale, the US Geological Survey said. Army and paramilitary troops began fanning out to the affected areas on Tuesday night to provide medical treatment and relief to the hundreds of victims.
Meanwhile, a huge earthquake that struck Iran’s rural south-east region killed one woman and injured more than two dozen other people, media reports on Wednesday cited officials as saying.
“A woman was killed by a mountain landslide following the quake,” Alireza Shahraki, governor of Khash city, was quoted by ISNA news agency as saying.
According to other Iranian officials cited by the media, Tuesday’s 7.7 magnitude quake in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan also left 27 people injured while more than 20 villages were damaged.
At least eight aftershocks have been recorded, the strongest measuring 5.6 magnitude.