Massive Earthquake Strikes Afghanistan/Pakistan Border
BECKY ANDERSON, HOST: Pakistan and Afghanistan hit by an earthquake. At this hour the 7.5-magnitude tremor has left at least 118 people dead, hundreds injured and rubble of collapsed buildings in its wake. I'm going to give you a report from the region, up next. Also ahead...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We could at any time turn on the TV or the radio and hear the decision announced there.</s>ANDERSON: Waiting on death row. I sit down with a man whose son and brother face beheading and crucifixion in Saudi Arabia. Their story later in the show. Plus, traditionally a symbol of peace, olive branches are now also embroiled in the tensions of Israelis and Palestinians, but one group of volunteers is working to promote a peaceful harvest. More from the olive groves later this hour.</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Abu Dhabi, this is Connect the World with Becky Anderson.</s>ANDERSON: A very good evening from the UAE at just after 7:00 in the evening. Dozens of people are dead hours after South Asia was hit by a powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake. It was centered in northeastern Afghanistan, but it shook the ground in several countries across the region. In Pakistan, at least 146 people are reported dead, nearly 600 are injured, but these numbers have been going up all day as remote areas reached. And in northern Afghanistan, 12 girls were killed in a stampede as they rushed out of their school. Now, the epicenter of the quake was in northeastern Afghanistan. As you can see on this map, tremors were felt hundreds of kilometers away. As far north as Kyrgyzstan as far south as India's capital New Delhi. And that's where CNN Ravi Agriwal joins us now live. Ravi, what's the latest, as you understand it?</s>RAVI AGRIWAL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Becky, well the latest is that the death toll that CNN has been able to independently confirm is now about 180 across Pakistan and Afghanistan. And the sad reality of a crisis like this is that we can well expect that number to rise as we hear more from the far-flung parts of those two countries. Getting in touch with people there has been quite difficult over the last few hours. Phone lines are down in many areas, and so we actually at this stage, we still don't know how bad the damage could be in the remote parts of those two countries. We've been hearing from people in Kabul, however, and there our producer has told us that this was the most severe quake that he had felt in many years. And when he was driving around the city afterwards, he said that he actually didn't see that much devastation around the city. So perhaps that's a ray of light that we can hold onto for now. But further south where I am here in New Delhi, it's about 750 miles south of the epicenter, we felt the tremors pretty strongly. We could see the walls around us shake, lampshades were shaking, And we knew this was quite a serious and severe earthquake -- Becky.</s>ANDERSON: All right. All right, Ravi on the story from New Delhi for you. Now comes a scramble is rescue survivors and assess the damage, as Ravi pointed out. Joining me now is Unni Krishnan. He's the head of disaster preparedness and response at Plan International. And Unni, this is one of a number of earthquakes, sadly, that this region has experienced in, say, the last 10 years. You're very familiar with the sort of aftermath of these incidents. What happens at this point? Just how prepared is this region?</s>UNNI KRISHNAN, PLAN INTERNATINOAL: OK, there are two different things. First of all, what is needed right now, search and rescue, medical assistance and actually rescuing people from collapsed buildings should be the priority and for the survivors time is running out and quick action is need. That's the first thing and that's the foremost thing that should be happening right now. Second, you mentioned about several earthquakes. Yes, in Iran in 2003, in Berm (ph), thousands of people died. And moving further 2005 in Pakistan, up to 75,000 people died. And also the Indian side of Kashmir was also impacted during that earthquake. And recently, six months ago in Nepal -- in fact yesterday we were observing a Plan Nepal -- our Plan International team in Nepal were observing the six months of the earthquake. And there has been in between either earthquakes or shocks in other countries in the region as well. So, we should be taking building safety and local level preparedness very, very seriously, because -- especially if you look at other remote places that has been impacted because of this earthquake, it will be the local people who will always be the first responders, and sometimes our only responders during the initial hours. And supporting them and helping them to prepare better to deal with earthquakes is absolutely key. Plan International works in these countries and our work often focuses on children, that's our priority. And we work with children in schools so that they can start learning about the preparedness and readiness from very early days itself. We were watching about what has happened to 12 girls in Afghanistan who died when they were running away from the school. This -- and our thoughts are with them and their families, and there these are sadly some of the things which we can avoid if we put better preparedness and readiness missions in place. And that's where investments are needed, especially focusing on children.</s>ANDERSON: How significant was it that this was an earthquake that happened during the day as opposed to in the hours of darkness and that it was relatively deep underground, wasn't it?</s>KRISHNAN: Absolutely. This earthquake was much deeper if you look at the scale -- on the Richter scale, this was more or less like what happened in 2005, but the number of people who may die from this earthquake is likely to be less because it was very, very deep. And the second thing that happened during that time, so the fact that many people were not sleeping inside their houses, that's what happens during nighttime and if the building collapsed, they have no way of getting out of some of these buildings. So, these two helped actually, will definitely contribute to reducing the number of deaths. At the same time, this also happened during school hours. And we know that unsafe schools and school buildings kill a lot of children, and unsafe buildings kill people. So we need to watch out in the next few hours the information that is coming from Afghanistan, especially locations close to the epicenter and other places as well.</s>ANDERSON: Unni Krishnan is the head of disaster preparedness and response at Plan International joining you out of London this evening. Unni, thank you.</s>ANDERSON: Still to come this hour on CNN, Russia's airstrikes in Syria raising tensions with the U.S. Now is Russia considering expanding that campaign? Well, we'll get some answers on that. First up, though, from war hero to soldier at peace, Israel remembers Prime Minister who paid the ultimate price for pursuing a final peace agreement with the Palestinians.