Pakistan earthquake leaves 45 dead

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck western Pakistan Tuesday, killing at least 45 people and destroying houses in a sparsely populated area of the South Asian country, officials and residents said.

The Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), the department tasked with responding to such incidents in Pakistan, reported more than 100 people were injured in the quake which struck at 4:29 p.m. local time southwest of the city of Khuzdar in Balochistan province. Balochistan is a remote, mountainous area with no major industrial infrastructure.

Tremors were felt across the province, as well as in the port city of Karachi, residents said. People as far as the capital New Delhi also reported mild tremors.

Muhammad Riaz, a senior Pakistan meteorologist, told local media that the earthquake was "major" and that "heavy destruction" was likely.

Mumtaz Baloch, a senior local administration official in Awaran district, 217 miles southwest of provincial capital Quetta, told Agence France-Presse he had received reports of houses collapsing in the area due to the quake.

Brigadier Syed Wajid Raza, ERRA's chief of staff, told Al Jazeera that many people were still trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Tuesday’s earthquake was so powerful that it caused the seabed to rise and created a small, mountain-like island off Pakistan's Gwadar coastline in the Arabian Sea, local news reported.

Television channels showed images of a stretch of rocky terrain rising above the sea, with a crowd of bewildered people gathered on the shore to witness the rare phenomenon.

In April, another 7.8-magnitude quake centered in southeast Iran, close to the border with Balochistan, killed 41 people.

Al Jazeera and wire services