ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar on Tuesday expressed sorrow over the loss of life in a remote mountainous region of China which was rocked by a 6.2-magnitude earthquake at night, killing 118 people and injuring many more.
The quake that destroyed roads and infrastructure after it the northern edge of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, prompting the Chinese authorities to swiftly mobilize emergency response.
China and Pakistan are both part of seismically active regions and have witnessed massive earthquakes leading to significant devastation in the past.
“Deeply saddened to learn about the loss of precious lives due to the earthquake in Gansu province in China,” the prime minister wrote in a social media post on X. “Our sympathies are with our Chinese brothers and sisters in this hour of grief.”
Pakistan and China are strategic allies and have carried out several joint defense and infrastructure development projects in recent decades.
The two countries are jointly implementing a multibillion-dollar regional connectivity plan that is said to change the economic geography of the whole neighborhood and closely integrate their economies.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is part of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013, to improve land-based routes and join them with sea-lanes for enhanced trade
China’s deadliest quake in recent decades was in 2008 when a magnitude-8.0 quake struck Sichuan, killing nearly 70,000 people.
This happened only three years after a Pakistan’s northern region was jolted in 2005 in which over 87,000 people lost their lives.
