AP Photo
The earthquake hit Pakistan on Sunday night.

Pakistani earthquake kills thousands with tolls still rising

BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) — Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands Sunday through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake. Pakistani officials said the death toll ranged between nearly 20,000 and 30,000.

Pakistan’s president called Saturday’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake the country’s worst on record and appealed for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote areas. Rival India, which reported more than 465 dead, offered assistance.

“I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir,’’ Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.

In mountainous Kashmir, the quake flattened dozens of villages and towns, crushing schools and mud-brick houses. The dead included 250 girls at a school razed to the ground and more than 200 Pakistani soldiers on duty in the Himalayas.

The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed.

“We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan’s history,’’ chief army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said.

Officials said Balakot was one of the hardest-hit areas.

Near the ruins of one collapsed school, at least a dozen bodies were strewn on the streets of the devastated village of about 30,000. At least 250 pupils were feared trapped inside the rubble of the four-story school.

Dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers but many without tools, pulled at the debris and carried away bodies.