Pakistan quake deaths likely to top 300 [October 31 2008]

Doctors said today they were running out of drugs and artificial limbs for victims of the earthquake in southwestern Pakistan amid fears that the death toll would climb beyond 300. The 6.4-magnitude quake hit a poor mountainous region near the Afghan border before dawn Wednesday. It destroyed 3,000 houses and made about 15,000 people homeless.

Troops and relief agencies have scrambled to help communities in remote valleys, from where provincial minister Zamrak Khan said reports of fatalities were still arriving. Khan said the bodies of 215 people killed had been buried so far. However, he said reports from four badly hit districts indicated that others had been interred without informing authorities and that the real toll was "somewhere above 300." Authorities are distributing thousands of tents, blankets, coats and food packages to keep people alive as nighttime temperatures fall to the freezing point.