Scores Feared Dead After Pakistan Earthquake
But scores of people were feared killed or trapped in two apartment blocks reduced to rubble in Islamabad.
Private television station Geo TV broadcast pictures of residents and rescue workers clambering over heaps of rubble. Officials told Reuters the two tower blocks had contained 75 apartments.
"I just cannot say how many people are still under there and we are trying to evacuatethem. Over 75 apartments were affected so the number of people is in the hundreds," said Mohammad Ali, a government official in Islamabad.
Geo TV also said 25 people had been killed in Pakistani Kashmir and four in northern Pakistan.
The quake was also felt in the Indian and Afghan capitals. A young girl was killed in eastern Afghanistan when a wall collapsed.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) situated the earthquake on its website between Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir with a magnitude of 7.6.
It described the quake as "major", saying it took place at a depth of 10km. It was centred 95km north-east of Islamabad and 125km north-west of Srinagar.
The USGS's David Applegate told CNN that because the epicentre was relatively close to the surface, the quake was likely to have been felt over a large area.
"We can say that it was one of the strongest earthquakes (ever) felt in Islamabad," said Mohammad Hanif, an official at the Pakistan Meteorological Department.
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