Photo taken on Jan. 31, 2018 shows a damaged house following an earthquake in southwest Pakistan's Lasbela. At least one child was killed and nine others injured as a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 jolted parts of Pakistan on Wednesday, Pakistan's National Seismic Monitoring Centre said. (Xinhua/Stringer)
ISLAMABAD, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- At least one child was killed and nine others injured as a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 jolted parts of Pakistan on Wednesday, Pakistan's National Seismic Monitoring Centre said.
According to local media reports, the child died and others sustained injuries after a couple of mud houses collapsed in the Bela town of Lasbela district of the country's southwest Balochistan province.
Rescue teams have been dispatched to the affected area and a state of emergency has been declared in the hospitals in the Lasbela district.
The strong tremors were felt in different areas of the southwest province of Balochistan, capital Islamabad, northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province at 12:07 p.m. local time.
The quake's epicenter was determined in the Hindu Kush Region of Afghanistan, with a focal depth of 169 km, the Seismic Center said.
The tremors created panic among people who rushed out of their houses to the open places, local Urdu TV channels reported.
Pakistan is among the most earthquake-prone regions of the world with high vulnerability to earthquakes, because Pakistan lies in the collision zone of the India tectonic plate to the south and the Eurasian plate to the north.
In October 2015, an earthquake of 7.5-magnitude struck parts of Pakistan, killing at least 280 people, wounding over 1,900 others and damaging 100,552 houses and 1,426 schools.
In Oct. 2005, a high-intensity earthquake of 7.4-magnitude hit parts of the country, causing a large-scale destruction, and killing over 80,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands of others homeless.
