Quake killed more than 57,000 in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD - More than 57,000 people have been confirmed killed by the devastating earthquake that struck northern Pakistan on October 8, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said today.

Aziz told the National Assembly that thousands of people had been injured and hundreds of thousands left homeless by the quake, which devastating wide areas of Pakistani Kashmir and adjoining North West Frontier Province.

The government previously gave a death toll of more than 55,000, with 78,000 injured.

Another 1,309 people have been confirmed killed and 6,622 injured in neighboring Indian-ruled Kashmir.

Pakistani regional officials say the total death toll in Pakistan will be much higher because data has yet to be compiled from remote mountainous regions cut off by landslides.

At 7.6 magnitude, the earthquake was the strongest to hit South Asia in a century.

- REUTERS