Major earthquake in Pakistan, damages unknown (Roundup)

Jan 18, 2011, 23:08 GMT

Washington/Quetta - A major earthquake struck early Wednesday near Dalbandin in a sparsely-populated mountainous region of Pakistan's Balochistan province, possibly causing some deaths.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimated the magnitude at 7.2.

The quake was 84 kilometres deep, and struck near the Pakistan border area with Iran at 1:23 am Wednesday (2023 GMT), the USGS said. The epicentre was 310 kilometres east-south-east of Zahedan, Iran.

An editor of the Urdu-language newspaper Daily Jang based in Quetta, 500 km away from the epicentre, told the German Press Agency dpa that one woman had died of cardiac arrest and that a child had been killed in the quake.

Due to the remoteness of the region, further reports on casualties and damages were not available, the editor said.

Balochistan is the most south-west province in Pakistan. The nearest town to the epicentre was Dalbandin, about 47 kilometres away, a small isolated town.

The epicentre was 1,020 kilometres west-south-west of the capital Islamabad, and 310 kilometres east-south-east of Zahedan, Iran.

CNN reported that the tremors were felt as far away as New Delhi.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake was too far inland to have generated a tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

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