Earthquake in Pakistan, 2005

It was an ordinary day in Pakistan, on Saturday, October 8th 2005.Everyone going about their everyday lives, then at approximately 8:50:40 AM (local time) an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 hit! It came with a maximum intensity of VIII. In other areas, such as New Delhi and Chandigarh the intensity was about IV-V. Then in Afghanistan, the intensity was about a III. The depth of the earthquake was about 26 km or 16.2 miles. Now, this all happened in northern Pakistan; 34˚N, 73˚E, to be exact. It was clearly devastating. Over 86,000 people were killed and over 69,000 were injured. And that’s only in Pakistan alone. This earthquake spread to India and Afghanistan. In India, over 1,350 were killed and 6,266 were injured. Then, in Afghanistan, at least one person was killed.
But it didn’t stop at that; there were also extensive amounts of damage. At least 32,335 buildings collapsed in Anantnag, Baramula, and Jammu. And other buildings were collapsed in Abbottabad, Gujjranwala, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Over 4 million people were left homeless. Imagine that, your home being destroyed in a matter of seconds. Sad right? Then rock falls and landslides destroyed several mountain roads and highways. This cut off access to the area for many days. The heaviest damage though, happened in the Muzaffarabad area. And nearby by in the town of Uri, 80% of the town was destroyed. Then in Kashmir, entire villages were destroyed. Liquefaction and sand blows in the western part of Vales of Kashmir and near Jammu hit. Also, there were many landslides and rock falls in parts of Himachal Pradesh, India. As you can see this earthquake caused a lot of damage to this part of Asia. Well, on the up side, at least it’s not like this turned out like the Great Tokyo Earthquake where about 100, 000 people were killed. In short the Pakistan earthquake was very devastating for the area.
MM2