Death toll from earthquake in Pakistan rises to 327

The death toll from a powerful earthquake in southwest Pakistan rose to 327 on Wednesday after hundreds of mud houses collapsed on residents throughout the remote and thinly populated area, local officials said. Pakistan’s army airlifted hundreds of soldiers to help with the aftermath of the worst earthquake in the South Asian country since 2005, when about 75,000 people were killed in the country’s north. Tuesday’s earthquake of magnitude 7.7 struck Baluchistan, a huge earthquake-prone province of deserts and rugged mountains, and was felt across South Asia. It destroyed houses and cut communications with the worst affected district of Awaran, and was so powerful it caused a small island to emerge from the Arabian Sea, just off the Pakistani coast. "Two hundred and eighty-five bodies have so far been recovered in the Awaran district," Abdul Rasheed Gogazai, the deputy commissioner of Awaran, the worst affected town, with a population of about 200,000, told Reuters.