IT was just before 9am and 17-year-old Uzair Mohammed Qureshi was reading his chemistry book as the ground began to shake.

More than 3,000 people died today when a massive earthquake triggered landslides, toppled an apartment building and flattened villages of mud-brick homes near the border between Pakistan and India.

The death toll in the powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border climbed to more than 2,000 today and included 250 girls who were crushed by rubble when their school collapsed.