Hundreds of people rushed out of their offices and homes in panic today after an earthquake hit the Iran-Pakistan border had ripples felt in Pakistan's biggest city and in cities across the Sindh and Baluchistan provinces.
The epicentre of the earthquake was somewhere at the Pakistan-Iran border and measured 7.9 on the Richter scale, the Met office reported.
There was fear on the faces of people who had rushed out of their offices, homes, shopping malls and markets after the first jolt was felt.
The worst affected areas, apparently, were Clifton, near the Arabian coastal area, and the densely populated Gulistan-e-Jauhar area where there are hundreds of high-rise buildings.
The people came out of their apartments as soon as the jolts were felt around 3.46 pm local time that lasted for around 15 seconds, but enough to scare the people.
"I felt the whole building shaking. It was very scary. There were one or two powerful jolts," Abbas, an employee of the Geo news channel, said as he rushed out of the building.
Television channels reported that jolts were also witnessed in Hyderabad city, Quetta, Peshawar and other parts of the country.
"People started praying and there was plenty of panic but we tried to keep things calm," traffic constable Ahmed said.
Announcements from mosques in different parts of the city appealed to the people to come out of their houses, offices and shops, into open spaces.
Around 100,000 people were killed and thousands were injured when a major earthquake struck the northern areas/Kashmir of Pakistan in October, 2005.
