Desperate villagers in southwest Pakistan are clawing through the wreckage of their ruined homes, a day after a huge earthquake struck, killing more than 300 people.
The 7.7-magnitude quake hit on Tuesday afternoon in Baluchistan province's remote and Awaran district.
At least 328 people have been confirmed dead and more than 450 injured, according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) and the Baluchistan government.
In the village of Dalbedi, the earthquake - Pakistan's deadliest since the devastating Kashmir quake of 2005, which killed 73,000 - flattened some 250 houses.
Bewildered villagers dug with their hands through the rubble of their mud houses in Dalbedi to retrieve what was left of their meagre possessions.
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Their simple houses destroyed, they used rags, old clothes, sheets and tree branches to shelter their families from the sun.
Farmer Noor Ahmed, 45, said the tremors lasted for two minutes and turned buildings in the village into piles of mud.
"We have lost everything, even our food is now buried under mud, and water from underground channels is now undrinkable because of excessive mud in it due to the earthquake," he told AFP.
Jan Muhammad Buledi, spokesman for the Baluchistan government, gave the death toll and told AFP it was likely to rise further as rescue teams reach more villages in the area, which has been shaken by more than a dozen aftershocks.
More than 300,000 people had been affected by the quake across six districts -- Awaran, Kech, Gwadar, Panjgur, Chaghi and Khuzdar -- he said.
The authorities have prioritised finding the injured and getting them to hospital, but the task is hampered by the area's remoteness and the limited infrastructure.
The scale of the territory involved is daunting. Awaran's population is scattered over an area of more than 21,000 square kilometres (8,000 square miles).
Baluchistan makes up about 45 per cent of Pakistan's area but is the country's least populated and least developed province. On top of the difficult terrain, the area is rife with separatist and Islamist militants as well as bandits.
Tremors were felt on Tuesday as far away as New Delhi and even Dubai in the Gulf.
The quake caused a new island to appear close to the coastline at Gwadar, officials said, prompting astonished locals to rush to the shore to take a look.
"It looked very very strange to me and also a bit scary because suddenly a huge thing has emerged from the water," Gwadar resident Muhammad Rustam told AFP.
Experts said a similar small island appeared at the same place in the sea after a major quake in 1945 but disappeared after some time. They expect the same to happen this time.
