Islamabad/Rawalpindi: Fear gripped the residents of the federal capital as a high-magnitude earthquake jolted different parts of Pakistan yesterday afternoon, with no casualties or major damage to property in the city. The people evacuated the buildings as soon as they felt the shocks. Panic-bearing faces looked at the buildings and asked the remaining ones to evacuate.
A motor mechanic Raja Kamran at G-7 I&T Centre told The Nation that they rushed out of the workshop as soon as they felt the shocks. “Everybody was running for safety…it was horrible to see buildings swinging,” he added. Jehangir, a government official told The Nation, “I was searching for some file in the cupboard when it started shaking. First I could not guess what was going on. Then I realised the tremor and started running downstairs. My colleagues followed me. The security guards asked the people running for safety not to use lifts.” He was concerned that there was no proper alarm system in the building, housing dozens of government offices.
“As the officials left the building, a few of them might have returned to their seats and the office work did not resume after the earthquake,” he added. Mahtab Bashir, a local, said he was standing at a tuck shop in sector G-7 when the earthquake struck. “We were just waiting for the tremor to stop but it went on uninterruptedly. I wanted to inquire about the safety of my family in sector I-10 but phones were not working which added to my worries,” he said.
The people working in government and private offices started running outside their workplaces while the household women rushed out in the streets. The sectors F-10 and E-11 of Islamabad have high-rise buildings. The streets in these areas were overcrowded as the people came out of their apartments during the earthquake. A resident of E-11 raised a question on the working of CDA, saying the authority had failed to stop developers to construct ‘illegal’ high-rise buildings in the area.
Eleven persons including two children and two women were brought to PIMS for medical treatment. One slipped from motorbike while a child fell from rooftop, hospital sources said. Four injured were brought to Polyclinic Hospital. One had both feet fractured while another had minor injuries. One person received foot fracture when he jumped from the first floor of Jahangir Restaurant, Blue Area, in panic. He was shifted to Polyclinic for treatment. Hospitals have been put on high alert keeping in view the intensity of the earthquake and its aftershocks. Social Security Hospital sources said that 10 labourers of Koh-e-Noor Mills were brought to the hospital for medical treatment who got injured in the earthquake. No inured was brought to the city hospitals from other parts of the country and AJK till filing of this report.
An official at Zong headquarters told The Nation on condition of anonymity that soon after the earthquake, the management asked the staff to go home. The building was cleared of all the officials as a safety measure, he added. In Islamabad, the government schools close at 2:00pm and most of the children had gone back to their homes before the earthquake. However, the students of second shift were in the educational institutions. The earthquake also caused a wave of fear amongst them.
Meanwhile in Rawalpindi, at least three people including a woman and two children were killed while 24 other got injured, informed government officials and rescuers yesterday. The injured were shifted to Allied Hospitals where doctors are providing them medical treatment, hospital sources informed. An emergency were also declared in all the hospitals.
With the massive earthquake, several buildings were either collapsed or cracks developed in the infrastructure. There were also some unconfirmed reports that cracks appeared in elevated route of metro bus service project in twin cities. In Satellite Town, a woman namely Perveen suffered a lethal heart attack and died as she felt earthquake. Reportedly, a five-year-old girl and another child were killed after falling from rooftops of their houses when massive earthquake hit the city. On the other hand, half portion of an old building was also collapsed on Iqbal Road burying 6 people under the rubble. Upon calling, Rescue 1122 rushed to the site and pulled out the injured from rubble and shifted them to hospital for treatment. In Kashmiri Bazaar, two people also sustained multiple injuries when the roof of a shop collapsed owing to devastative earthquake. The victims were moved to hospital for medical treatment.
A cupboard also fell on a two-year-old girl Manahil in Dheri Hassanabad and she was shifted to hospital by the rescuers. Several houses, walls and roofs were also collapsed or damaged in the areas of Sadiqabad, Shamasabad, Ganjmandi, Gawalmandi, Saddar, Dhoke Mustaqeem, Tench Bhatta, Chakri Road, Chachi Mohalla, Asghar Mall Road, Raja Bazaar, Dhoke Ratta, Range Road, and Khayaban-e-Sir Syed, injuring several people.
In another incident, seven people sustained injuries when the wall of a building in Prinda Market on College Road collapsed. They all were immediately rescued to District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) by the Rescue 1122. A youth, in an effort to jump from the roof top of his home got slipped and suffered injuries. He also was shifted to DHQ for medical treatment.
In-charge Allied Hospitals, Dr Umar told media that an emergency situation has been declared in all the three hospitals of Rawalpindi where extra beds have been put in the verandas to provide medical aid to the injured. The traffic got jammed on all the small and big roads causing accidents and minor injuries to commuters. Several people also left their houses, shops and offices while students and teachers came out of their educational institutions and stood under open sky while reciting verses from the Holy Quran when massive earthquake shook the city.
“I was attending my physics class in university when I felt as if the whole building and classroom are floating. Then I and my class fellows ran towards lawn and started chanting Allah o Akbar. It was horrible earthquake,” said Qasim Manzoor while talking to The Nation. According to hospital sources, some 15 earthquake victims were landed in District Headquarters Hospital and 2 in Benazir Bhutto Hospital while 6 are under treatment in Holy Family Hospital. Those who are being cured by the paramedics in three teaching hospitals including Shehroz son of Sulman, 6, Kiran daughter of Waqar, 24, Faizan son of Ishfaq, 25, Zeeshan son of Nazeer, 24, Fatima daughter of Ali, 21, Sahir, 19, Waleed, 57, Akram son of Rafiq, 60, Ayub, 55, Jameel son of Ameer Gul, 60, Waheed son of Raheem, 15, Mazhar son of Hussain, 26, Ali Sher son of M Hussain, 22, Manahil, 2, Mohsin Rafiq, 25, Fazal, 25, Manan, Saeeda, Shoaib, Rukhsana, Johar Ali, Iqra, Nasir and Qamar.
DCO Sajid Zafar Dall, who also visited all the three teaching hospitals and enquired about the health of victims, told media that 15 victims of earthquake have been discharged by the doctors from hospital after providing them initial treatment while two were still under observation. Meanwhile, All Pakistan Private Schools Association (APPSA) has announced public holiday in educational institutions of Rawalpindi on Tuesday (today) due to fear of aftershocks of the earthquake. The APPSA said that all educational institutions in Rawalpindi division will remain closed on Tuesday as according to PMD sources aftershocks were fear to shake during the next 24 hours.
