Pakistan aid helicopter targeted; 355 people dead in earthquake

LABACH, Pakistan—Separatist militants fired two rockets that narrowly missed a Pakistani government helicopter surveying a region devastated by an earthquake, underscoring the dangers authorities face in helping victims in Baluchistan, the country’s most impoverished province.

The doctor in charge of the main hospital in the area said the facility doesn’t even have an X-ray machine or a laboratory and that supplies of crucial medicines were running low, as the death toll from Tuesday’s magnitude 7.7 quake climbed to 355 with nearly 700 people injured.

Survivors complained that aid was not reaching remote areas.

Labach lies just a few miles outside the capital of Awaran district, one of the poorest in Baluchistan.

In the town of Awaran, about 100 people demonstrated around the district office to call attention to the plight of those still waiting for help. The quake flattened wide sections of the district, leaving hundreds of people crushed or injured beneath the crumbled piles of mostly mud brick houses. Helping the residents has been made even harder by the danger from Baluchistan separatists who have been battling the Pakistani government for years.

The militants fired two rockets Thursday at a helicopter carrying top Pakistani officials in charge of relief operations, but missed their target, said the deputy district commissioner, Abdur Rasheed. The helicopter was carrying the head of the country’s National Disaster Management Authority, a Pakistani Army general in charge of relief operations and other officials.

In another incident about 12 miles north of the town of Awaran, militants fired at Frontier Corps troops involved in relief operations, said a military official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give information to reporters. None of the troops was wounded.