'Shallow depth of quake caused devastation’

"Generally speaking, shallow earthquakes tend to cause greater damage than deep earthquakes," Yasuo Sekita, a seismic specialist at the Japan Meteorological Agency, told AFP.

Saturday's quake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, was centred on the Kashmir region with a focus some 10km (six miles) beneath the Earth's surface, according to the US Geological Survey and other seismic institutes.

The quake caused damage to widespread areas because of its shallow depth, agreed Issei Ohara, a seismologist at Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention.

Kashmir is prone to large earthquakes because it lies at the collision point of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates, which created the Himalayas 50 million years ago.