More than 1,000 people were feared dead Friday in the worst earthquake to hit India in 50 years, which was felt as far away as neighboring Pakistan and Nepal.
The quake, which pummeled the western state of Gujarat, cast a tragic shadow over India's 51st Republic Day celebrations as hundreds of buildings crumbled when the earth shook.
Indian officials measured the quake's magnitude at 6.9 on the Richter scale, but foreign seismological bureaux put it at up to 7.9.
"The death figure in the earthquake could be 1,000 or more," Home Minister L.K. Advani was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India as he reached Gujarat's largest city of Ahmedabad.
The death toll in Ahemedabad alone had reached 260, officials said, adding the massive quake had destroyed hundreds of buildings and snapped regional transport and telecommunication links.
The quake struck at 8:46 am (0316 GMT) and the seismological bureau in New Delhi located the epicenter 20 kilometres (12 miles) northeast of the medieval Guajarati town of Bhuj.
Around 150 people were killed in a single building collapse in Bhuj, where Defense Minister George Fernandes had flown from New Delhi.
Advani instructed the federal authorities to rush two more army battalions to help with rescue and relief operations -- one each for Ahmedabad and Bhuj.
Television footage showed relief workers scrabbling to clear rubble from demolished buildings in Ahmedabad, as well as graphic images of the mutilated corpses of dead children.
An official at the relief control room in Ahmedabad told AFP at least 500 buildings had collapsed, and the city's hospitals were swamped with the dying and injured.
"There have been some tragic incidents. Like a school which collapsed, trapping at least 30 students," he said.
The city's top civil official, K. Srinivas, said he was sure the death toll would rise.
"The impact was widespread," Srinivas said, adding close to 5,000 relief workers had been mobilised.
Gujarat is one of India's economic powerhouses and home to the country's largest petroleum refinery, which was undamaged.
The temblor snapped communication lines with Bhuj, where an air force base was badly hit.
"We are still assessing the total damage, but there has been loss of life and property," said Air Force spokesman, R.K. Dhingra.
Doctor Vikram Parjhi, head of casualty at Ahmedabad's main civil hospital said his team had received more than 300 casualties.
"Sixty-four of those were dead on arrival," Parjhi said, adding most of those treated suffered head injuries and fractures sustained during building collapses.
The quake struck barely one hour before the traditional Republic Day military parade in New Delhi, after which Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee summoned an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the disaster.
"I am deeply pained and distressed to know about the devastating earthquake," Vajpayee said in a statement, and put government aid agencies on a war-footing to help the victims.
Gujarat was warned meanwhile to brace for more aftershocks, after the tremors were felt across a vast swathe of central and northern India, in New Delhi and Bombay, as well as Madras and Pondicherry in India's southernmost state of Tamil Nadu and in the eastern metropolis of Calcutta.
Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf offered his condolences to the people of Islamabad's arch rival India.
The "government and people of Pakistan share the grief of the bereaved families," he said in a letter to Vajpayee.
In Pakistan at least four people were killed as the quake rocked four major cities -- Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Hyderabad.
In Kathmandu the quake sparked panic but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The last major earthquake to hit India was in March 1999. Measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, it killed 100 people in the Himalayan foothills.
Friday's temblor was the largest since a quake registering 8.5 struck the northeastern state of Assam in 1950, killing 532 people -- NEW DELHI (AFP)
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