Statistics

Type: Earthquake

Strength: 7.6 Richter Scale (some reports say 7.7)

Shockwaves up to 5

Epicenter: beneath Hindu Kush Mountains, Pakistan

Area affected: North and South (Pakistan and Indian) Kashmir, Northern India, Southern Pakistan, Southern Afghanistan

Worst affected town: Balakot, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan - estimated 70% homes destroyed by initial 'quake.

Town with most dead: Muzaffarabad, capital, Pakistani controlled Kashmir - 11,000 dead (estimated after 24 hours)

Number displaced - 2.5 million (UN estimate after 48 hours)

Number dead - 20,000 estimated after 12 hours; 30,000 estimated after 36 hours.

Number injured - 50,000 + estimated after 30 hours.

Area affected ext 60,000 square miles

Special issues:

• Mountainous terrain with little or no road access for relief vehicles.
• Communications vulnerable to breakage in lines therefore limited telephone access and none in many areas
• Banking communications and back up facilities badly affected making money movements difficult
• Many public buildings including hospitals, schools, barracks and others collapsed.
  • The destruction of hospitals meant loss of medical personnel
  • Destruction of schools meant reduction in potential temporary shelter
  • Destruction of barracks killed or incapacitated military personnel who would have otherwise have been on hand and available to aid in rescue operation

Population issues: an extremely poor part of the world. It is very unlikely that much, if any, property in the rural areas was insured and unlikely that belongings and individually occupied property in the cities was insured.