At least three killed as 5.1 quake rocks Islamabad, parts of K-P

Two women and a nine-year-old child were killed when their house collapsed, official says

ISLAMABAD: At least three people were killed when a 5.1-magnitude earthquake struck northern parts of Pakistan early Saturday, officials said.

The United States Geological Survey said the tremor struck at a relatively shallow depth of 26 kilometres with its epicentre located 15 kilometres Islamabad.

An official from Abbottabad said two women and a nine-year-old child were killed when their house collapsed.

"A house built of mud in the outskirts of Abbottabad collapsed due to the earthquake, leaving two women and a young boy dead and a minor girl injured," senior police official Sher Akbar Khan told AFP.

The women were aged 25 and 48 and the boy nine. The injured girl was about six, Khan said.

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The quake was felt in several cities in the provinces of eastern Punjab and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ghulam Rasul, a senior meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department, told AFP.

Residents in the capital reported buildings and vehicles shaking after the quake hit at 1:59 am.

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Local meteorologists measured the quake at 4.6 magnitude with a depth of just 10 kilometres.

Pakistan straddles part of the boundary where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, making the country susceptible to earthquakes.

Pakistan was hit by a 7.6-magnitude quake on October 8, 2005 that killed more than 73,000 people and left about 3.5 million homeless, mainly in Azad Kashmir.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake devastated several areas in southwestern Baluchistan province in September 2013, killing at least 370 people and leaving 100,000 homeless.