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LequteMan
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A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday struck Baluchistan, a huge earthquake-prone province of deserts and rugged mountains, and was felt across South Asia.
It destroyed houses and cut communications with the worst affected district of Awaran, and was so powerful that it caused a small island to emerge from the sea just off the Pakistani coastline in the Arabian Sea.
According to Reuters, the death toll from the earthquake climbed to more than 230 on Wednesday after hundreds of mud houses collapsed on their inhabitants throughout the remote and thinly populated area, officials said.
"We have started to bury the dead," Abdul Rasheed Gogazai, the deputy commissioner of Awaran, a town of 200,000, told Reuters by telephone from the affected area.
Jan Mohammad Bulaidi, a spokesman for the Baluch government, said at least 239 were killed and 400 injured.
This is the worst earthquake to hit the country since 2005 when about 75,000 were killed in northern Pakistan.
Pakistan's army airlifted hundreds of soldiers to help rescue victims.
It was hard for rescue teams to reach the area quickly because it is so remote, and some officials said the death toll was likely to rise as emergency workers progressed deeper into the mountains to assess the damage.
Mohammad Shabir, a journalist, said there was so much grief and chaos in villages, saying survivors were digging rows of graves and picking through the debris.
"As far as the human eye can see, all the houses here have been flattened," he told Reuters from Awaran, adding that rescue teams were on the ground distributing supplies.
