ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 9 - A powerful earthquake centered in the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan on Saturday morning sent tremors across South Asia, killing more than 18,000 people, including at least 1,600 in remote northern Pakistan, among them hundreds across both sides of disputed Kashmir.
Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's chief army spokesman, who announced the toll on Sunday, said at least 45,000 people had been injured, a vast majority on the Pakistani side of Kashmir. He said that "so far there are many areas which have not been reached" by the army, but that military units were expected to reach all of them by the end of the day.
The quake was centered in the far-flung villages of the North-West Frontier Province, but it shook houses and high-rises throughout the region.
More than 1,600 were believed to have been killed in that province alone, the provincial police control room reported Saturday night. That toll includes an estimated 650 children who were killed in the collapse of three different schools.
Estimates of the quake's magnitude varied from 6.8 to 7.8, with the United States Geological Survey putting the number at 7.6. Its epicenter was roughly 60 miles north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where 20 "significant aftershocks" measuring between 5 and 6.2 magnitude were felt throughout the day on Saturday, Dr. Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, director general of the Meteorological Department in Islamabad, said by telephone on Saturday evening. Officials warned that serious aftershocks could continue for two days.
The earthquake, which sent tremors as far east as New Delhi, the Indian capital, and west to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, was the biggest to strike the country in a century, Dr. Chaudhry said.
The top police official of the North-West Frontier Province, Riffat Pasha, said Saturday evening that the death toll there continued to rise and that relief efforts had been stymied by blocked roads and broken communication channels.
"The situation is very, very bad," he said. "There are bodies lying everywhere. Those who have survived are lying in the open without food, shelter or medicine.
"The situation has been made worse by the rain and hailstorm that followed the earthquake," he continued. "There is no way we can reach out to them."
Private television stations showed images of leveled houses in the Pakistani side of Kashmir. Telephone lines remained down, and roads were blocked because of landslides. Torrential rain on Saturday evening was likely to impede relief efforts.
In the Indian-held section of the disputed Kashmir region, the death toll climbed to more than 240 by Saturday evening, including more than 30 Indian soldiers standing sentry at the disputed frontier. An untold number of houses were flattened, telephone lines and electricity were disrupted, and several roads were blocked by landslides, cutting the Kashmir Valley off from the rest of the country. The quake also destroyed a number of religious shrines, mosques and temples.
The death toll in Pakistan included 200 soldiers in the Pakistani-controlled section of Kashmir, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said in a CNN interview.
In Rawalpindi, a school for girls collapsed, killing one child and injuring six, said Sheik Rashid Ahmed, the information minister.
In eastern Afghanistan, four children were crushed to death and a woman was injured as the mud walls of their homes collapsed. News from remote mountainous areas near the border with Pakistan could take days to reach the provincial capitals.
Islamabad was in panic, and people spilled onto the streets. Traffic jams clogged roads, and residents huddled in groups outside houses, shopping plazas and government buildings. The cellphone network collapsed for at least 90 minutes.
Margalla Towers, an upscale five-tower apartment complex, took the city's biggest hit from the quake. One tower collapsed, and part of another fell. Army and civil authorities reached the site within 30 minutes. Rescue workers estimated that at least 150 people, mostly women and children, were stranded under the rubble of the building.
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan visited the apartment complex in Islamabad with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. General Musharraf expressed satisfaction with the rescue operation.
"It is a test for all of us," he said in an interview on state television. "We are sure we will pass this test."
