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Afghan earthquake rescue efforts in Kabul and beyond 02:19
Noor Wali was sitting inside his shoe shop in northwestern Pakistan when he heard a loud roaring sound and saw cracks appear in the walls.
He ran out of the building just before it collapsed into rubble.
“I avoided death by inches,” he told CNN.
His shop in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was one of thousands of structures flattened by the magnitude-7.5 earthquake that struck South Asia on Monday afternoon, killing at least 345 people and injuring more than 1,800 others.
“Many villages in normal circumstances are one or two hours from proper roads,” said Arif Noor, the Pakistan director for the aid group Mercy Corps. “As you can imagine, reaching those people and helping them out is going to be a major challenge.”
Boulders tumbling down on roads
The epicenter of the quake was in northeastern Afghanistan, but the majority of the deaths — at least 229, according to officials — have so far been reported across the border in Pakistan. That may be because the Pakistani areas are more heavily populated than the Afghan ones.
“The population is dense, but at the same time they’re everywhere — up in the mountains, down in the valleys,” Noor said. “With landslides, the situation is even worse.”
Irfan Ullah, a teacher, was on his way home from school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when the ground began trembling and boulders started to tumble down the hillside toward the road.
CNN
He rushed to avoid the danger but in his panic fell and broke his leg, he told CNN. Luckily, somebody found him and he was taken to a hospital in the Swat Valley.