QUETTA, Pakistan (CBS)–A major earthquake rocked Pakistan’s southwest Saturday, killing at least 15 and sending panicked people running into the street just days after another quake in the same region killed hundreds, officials said.
The U.S. Geological Survey said on its website that a 6.8 magnitude quake was felt in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province.
Pakistan’s Meteorological Department measured the earthquake at 7.2 magnitude, saying its epicenter was about 150 kilometers (90 miles) west of the town of Khuzdar.
Baluchistan government spokesman Jan Mohammad Buledi said those killed Saturday died in the Mushkay area of Awaran. The death toll from Tuesday’s disaster was 359, he added.
Little may have been left to damage after Tuesday’s disaster. Few of the mud and homemade brick houses in the area survived the 7.7 magnitude quake that leveled villages and buried people in the rubble. Since then tens of thousands of people have been sleeping under the open sky or in tents.
Chief Pakistani meteorologist Arif Mahmood told Pakistani television that Saturday’s earthquake was an aftershock and such tremors could continue for weeks.
Pakistan television showed people at the main hospital in Awaran district fleeing into the street. In the provincial capital of Quetta, the tremor was so strong it prompted members of the local parliament to evacuate the building.
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