While the toll mounts from the wide­spread area hit by the 7.7 scale earth­quake on Tues­day in south-west­ern Pak­istan, an army heli­copter with VIPs came under attack mak­ing it unsafe in that area for ground workers. 

Pres­i­dent of the Pak­istan Relief, Mujta­ba Haider Imran AP2MI, said gov­ern­ment offi­cials put the death toll at 349, more than 600 injured and many hun­dreds of homes destroyed.

The deaths are climb­ing as the teams move in the area span­ning 300 kilo­me­tres between Kech and Avaran.

Pakin­stan Ama­teur Radio Soci­ety mem­bers have been pre­pared to pro­vide some emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions sup­port to the dis­as­ter relief oper­a­tion in the remote and thin­ly pop­u­lat­ed area.

In the affect­ed area is Umair AP2MUT, expect­ed to give more infor­ma­tion on the dev­as­ta­tion and need­ed supplies.

Rough­ly an area of 500 kilo­me­tres is affect­ed, with many hous­es destroyed. There have been 16 after­shocks record­ed so far.

Fed­er­al Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Chaudhry Nis­ar Ali Khan said,  “There are cer­tain areas where aid could­n’t be pro­vid­ed even after 48 hours”.

The Min­is­ter was also engaged in talks to resolve an ear­li­er inci­dent. In a safe­ty advice to aid work­ers, they were told that for the time being, on ground relief activ­i­ties are not being con­sid­ered safe.

The warn­ing came after the attack on an army heli­copter car­ry­ing senior gov­ern­ment offi­cials includ­ing Chair­man of the Nation­al Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Authority.

Mean­while Pak­istan Army Avi­a­tion, Fron­tier Corps and ANF heli­copters are busy pro­vid­ing relief to the affect­ed pop­u­la­tion in Awaran, Kech.

Those severe­ly injured are being sent to the hos­pi­tals in near­by cities. Some local health units have crowd­ed facil­i­ties and have run out of med­ica­tion to offer even basic first aid.

Pak­istan Relief has donat­ed 2500 jer­ry cans, 1500 mos­qui­to nets, some first aid kits and oth­er essen­tial equipment.

The coor­di­na­tion process is under­way with Pak­istan Air Force and Army Avi­a­tion to air­lift and drop these goods in the worst hit areas.

-Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.