Islamabad, Jan 15 (DPA) Construction workers in Pakistan-administered Kashmir found the remains of 18 people thought to have been buried alive by a devastating earthquake in October 2005, a news report said Friday.
The discovery was made Thursday when a front-end loader was scooping away earth for the expansion of the Neelum Valley road just outside the region’s capital, Muzaffarabad, the Dawn newspaper said.
The operator grew suspicious after his machine’s blade struck metal, which was later found to be a passenger van apparently buried in a landslide triggered by the earthquake four years ago.
Rescuers and local people excavated around the vehicle and pulled out the remains of 18 people, including those of a woman. Fourteen of the dead were identified from documents found with them.
Dawn said authorities traced the van owner, Raja Naeem, through the vehicle’s registration plates.
Naeem was quoted as saying that the van had left a local bus station on October 8, 2005, shortly before the area was rattled by the magnitude-7.6 earthquake.
At least 73,000 people were killed and several hundred thousand more became homeless in the catastrophic event that shook northern Pakistan and the Himalayan region of Kashmir.
