At least 20 dead in earthquake

At least 20 people have been killed by a severe earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale which hit the Indian subcontinent.

It knocked down buildings in India and shook homes hundreds of miles away in Pakistan.

At least 18 bodies were pulled from the rubble after two buildings collapsed in the Indian city of Surat. Police official MB Tethani said the death toll was expected to rise.

In Pakistan, a child and an adult died when their two-storey home collapsed in the city of Hyderabad.

The quake was centred in the Rann of Kutch desert plateau on the border between India and Pakistan, the Indian Meteorological Institute said.

It hit India at about 8am local time. Residents of the capital, New Delhi, endured about a minute of shaking.

In Bombay, the Indian financial and entertainment capital, some people rushed into the streets and those in high-rise buildings held on to doorways as they watched their pictures and cupboards shake.

It was the same in Madras, on the eastern coast, and in Pondicherry, farther to the south, where people began fleeing a Republic Day parade in panic until officials on loudspeakers calmed them.

Meanwhile, millions of Hindu pilgrims attending the Kumbh Mela festival in eastern Uttar Pradesh felt the ground sway beneath them, but there was no panic reported.