Moderate earthquake shake northwestern Pakistan

A moderate earthquake shook northwestern Pakistan and its capital early Thursday, experts said, but there were no reports of casualties. The tremor at 3:04 a.m. (2204 GMT) was also felt in the northwestern city of Mansehra and Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, which was almost ruined in an Oct. 8 quake, said the Seismological Center in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Calling it an aftershock from the October quake, the center said Thursday's magnitude-5.3 tremor was centered about 200 kilometers (124 miles) northeast of Peshawar in the mountainous region of Hazara where Mansehra is a major city.

The United States Geological Survey recorded the tremor at magnitude 5.2. The seismological observatory of the Indian Meteorological Department earlier reported a magnitude-5.2 quake at 3:35 a.m. centered in the frontier region of Indian Kashmir. The Pakistani Seismological Center said it had no information on whether the two reported quakes were one and the same.

Some 1,522 aftershocks have been felt in northwestern Pakistan and its portion of Kashmir since the magnitude-7.6 quake struck, leaving about 87,000 people dead and about 3.5 million homeless, reports the AP. I.L.