-- Massive loss of property
It was centred near Jurm in north-east Afghanistan, 250 kilometres (160 miles) from the capital Kabul and at a depth of 213.5 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said. At least 63 people were confirmed dead in Afghanistan and 152 in Pakistan, according to officials, with the toll set to rise. "Exact numbers are not known because phone lines are down and communication has been cut off in many areas," Afghanistan's chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said, adding that the government has asked aid agencies for relief.
"The students rushed to escape the school building in Taluqan city (capital of Takhar), triggering a stampede," Takhar education department chief Enayat Naweed told AFP. "Twelve students, all minors, were killed and 35 others were injured." Arbab Muhammad Asim, district mayor for Peshawar, said more than 100 people had been injured there alone. "Many houses and buildings have collapsed in the city," he said. Dr Muhammad Sadiq, the head of emergency services at a government hospital in Peshawar said the injured were still being brought in.
"Many are still under rubble," Sadiq told AFP. "The building was swinging like a pendulum, it felt as if the heavens would fall," Peshawar shop owner Tufail Ahmed told AFP. "I have never seen such a massive earthquake in my life, it was huge," 87-year-old Peshawar resident Mohammad Rehman said.
Traffic came to a halt in downtown Kabul, with frightened people getting out of their cars as they waited for the quake to stop. Live footage from an Afghan news broadcast showed the anchor abandoning his desk as the quake shook the cameras. Restaurants and office buildings emptied in Islamabad, with cracks appearing in some buildings but no major damage reported. "We grabbed each other and were crying, we could not do anything, I felt so helpless," 16-year-old student Farhana Parveen, whose Islamabad school was evacuated, told AFP. "I had the scary feeling that the whole world would collapse." Hundreds of people in north India poured onto the streets from office blocks, hospitals and homes.
Delhi's metro ground to a halt during the tremor although the airport continued operating. In the Kashmir region, panicked residents evacuated buildings and children were seen huddling together outside their school in the main city of occupied Srinagar. The rescue effort was being complicated by the lack of communications, with the region's already fragile infrastructure hit.
Gul Mohammad Bidar, deputy governor of Badakhshan in Afghanistan, told AFP lines were down and it was difficult to reach stricken communities. "The earthquake was very powerful - buildings have been damaged (in Faizabad) and there are possible casualties," he said. One aftershock hit shortly afterwards, with the USGS putting its magnitude at 4.8.
Pakistan mobilised its troops and all military hospitals have been put on high alert, army spokesman Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa said, with the air force also offering support. Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. South Asia's quakes occur along a major fault line between the two plates - one under India pushing north and east at a rate of about two centimetres (0.8 inches) per year against the other, which carries Europe and Asia.
The epicentre of Monday's quake was just a few hundred kilometres from the site of a 7.6 magnitude quake that struck in October 2005, killing more than 75,000 people and displacing some 3.5 million more, although that quake was much shallower. In Nepal twin quakes in May killed more than 8,900 people, triggered landslides and destroyed half a million homes.