Tremors hamper Pakistan rescue

Relief is being flown in as roads are blocked

Landslides and aftershocks are hampering relief efforts in northern Pakistan a day after a powerful earthquake left thousands homeless.

Twenty-three people have so far been confirmed dead, officials say.

Aid sent

500 tents

4,000 blankets

Warm socks

Food and medicine

Rescue teams have been unable to get to some remote areas in the Karakorum mountains where the earthquake struck.

The Pakistani Government has flown emergency supplies to the main town of Gilgit, but teams are finding it difficult to reach villages in the badly-hit Astor valley.

Thousands of people in the region spent the night outside in bitterly cold conditions as they feared their homes may collapse.

Local officials say it is unclear how many people have been injured or are still trapped inside collapsed buildings.

They expect casualty numbers to rise.

Pakistan's Information Minister, Nisar Memon, who is also in charge of the country's Northern Areas, visited the region on Friday to supervise the relief operation.

"This whole area has been affected," he told the BBC. "There is no sign of the road in places."

Damaged roads

The quake, measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale, hit the Gilgit region, about 400 kilometres (240 miles) north of the capital, Islamabad, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

It is very tough. People are afraid and it is very cold to sleep outside

Villager

The deputy director of the Peshawar Seismological Department, Salahuddin Malik, said he expected aftershocks to subside gradually.

"We have recorded 53 aftershocks since the first major earthquake," he added.

The senior government official in the area, Muhammad Ali Yugvi, told Reuters news agency: "Astor road is badly damaged and so is the Karakorum highway, almost a 20-km stretch."

He added: "People have been lying out in the open sky at night, afraid to go indoors."

The Karakorum highway, linking Islamabad with China, was blocked for more than a week after an earthquake on 2 November in the same region in which 17 people were killed.

Villages badly hit

Army helicopters were bringing emergency aid and helping to take wounded people out from the worst affected villages, officials said.

The villages - Turbling, Mushin, Dashkin and Harchu - have a combined population of more than 6,000.

Earth tremors and landslides are common in the Karakoram range, where the Indian and Eurasian continental plates collide.

In 1974 a huge earthquake, measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale, killed 5,300 people close to the town of Patan, some 150 kilometres along the Karakoram Highway between Gilgit and Islamabad.