Survivors pulled from quake debris

Rescue teams today pulled two survivors from the rubble of a 10-storey apartment building that collapsed in the 7.6-magnitude earthquake a day earlier, doctors said.

The survivors, a boy and a woman who were listed in stable condition, said others were trapped alive and calling for help beneath the debris, said Adil Inayat, a doctor at PIMS hospital in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

“These people heard voices and cries during the whole night,” Inayat said.

A team of British experts was helping Pakistani rescuers to find survivors, Pakistani officials said.

Rizwan Naseer, a doctor who treated the survivors at the scene, said the survivors were shocked and exhausted.

“They didn’t talk much, but I feel they are out of danger,” he said.

He said rescuers had seen more bodies in the rubble, and efforts were under way to pull them out.

The building, part of the upscale Margalla Towers complex, collapsed when the quake struck shortly before 9am on Saturday. At least 24 people were killed and dozens were injured.

Hospital doctors said the dead included an Egyptian diplomat, and the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said two Japanese were killed.