Thousands were feared dead across the Himalayan region straddling Pakistan and India today after a major earthquake tore up villages, triggered landslides and felled two apartment blocks in Islamabad.
"The deaths could be running in the thousands. We do not have an exact figure for casualties at this moment, but it's massive," Pakistani authorities said after an aerial survey of stricken areas.
The earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.6, struck at 8.50am local time and was centred in forest-clad mountains of Pakistani Kashmir, near the Indian border, about 95 km (60 miles) northeast of Islamabad.
The first quake was followed over the next nine hours by 11 hefty aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.4 to 6.3, which shook buildings in the Afghan, Indian and Bangladeshi capitals, Kabul, New Delhi and Dhaka and were felt across the region.
The US Geological Survey described the quake as "major", saying it took place at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), and that the strongest aftershock was at a depth of 20.3 km.
Pledges of international support arrived within hours, but details of the damage were difficult to obtain because telephone lines were down, mobile networks overwhelmed and relief efforts hampered by landslides and heavy rain.
"Because the damages have been mostly in far-flung areas, it is difficult for the rescue teams to reach those areas," a spokesman said.
"In some areas the army was ... deployed and they immediately started the rescue works, in the other areas the rescue teams are being flown in by helicopters."
A senior police officer said at least 500 people were killed and over 1,700 injured in one district of Pakistan's North West Frontier, where several villages were believed to have been reduced to rubble.
But the aid agency Oxfam said it was becoming clear that the worst-hit area was Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, where 5 out of 7 districts in an area long disputed by Islamabad and New Delhi were severely affected.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said damage was also heavy in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
On the Indian side of Kashmir, police said the earthquake had killed 213 people and injured hundreds more.
Half the deaths were in Uri, the last big town on a key highway connecting the two sides of the violence-scarred region. The dead included 15 soldiers, some of them in bunkers close to the military ceasefire line between India and Pakistan.
The landslides also blocked a 300-km (190-mile) highway that connects Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, to the rest of India to the south.
The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road linking Indian and Pakistani Kashmir - reopened earlier this year to traffic for the first time in nearly 60 years - was also blocked.
In Islamabad, scores of people were feared killed or trapped in two 12-storey apartment blocks that were reduced to rubble. "I've seen mutilated bodies, I've seen people alive but crushed," said a Pakistani army officer, taking a break from the rescue, who gave his name as Captain Asam.
Pakistani President Musharraf went to the scene in the Pakistani capital. "It is a test for all of us," he said. "It is a test for me, of the Prime Minister, of the government and of the entire nation and I am sure we will succeed," he said.
Residents struggled to shift heavy concrete with bare hands. "The quake jolted me awake and I saw people running down the staircase," said Sabahat Ahmed, a resident of one of the blocks.
"By the time the second tremor hit, the building had already started to collapse. "As the building was collapsing people were still coming out from it. I heard and saw various people in a state of panic and many stuck under the collapsed building."