The death toll following the powerful earthquake that has struck Pakistan, northern India and Afghanistan is rising fast, with more than 1,000 people now known to have been killed.

The epicentre of the quake, which registered 7.6 on the Richter, was located in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, where at least 250 people died. More than 500 were killed along the northern border with India. In India, where the tremor was felt as far the capital New Delhi, the death toll now stands at more than 170. Reports from Afghanistan speak of several injured.

The material damage is extensive. In Kashmir, entire villages are believed to have been razed to the ground. In the Pakistani capital Islamabad, some 80 kilometres from the quake's epicentre, two apartment blocks collapsed, burying dozens of people under the rubble.

However, with infrastructure, including phone links, badly damaged, the exact extent of the devastation is still hard to assess.

(rnw.nl)