Quake succeeds where invaders fail

The 500-year-old fort looks north over the entrance to the Neelum valley, set on a point of land in a kink in its river and commanding an ancient route from the high Himalayas down to the lowlands.

"Enemies always failed to undermine this fort but we are helpless against nature," Mehmood ul Hasan, director of Pakistani Kashmir's information department, said as he surveyed the ruins of the devastated city's main historical site.

The epicentre of the 7.6 magnitude earthquake was just 10 km or so to the north. It killed more than 55,000 people in northern Pakistan, most in Kashmir.

When the quake hit, many parts of the fort's thick walls of oval-shaped river stones and pinkish mortar crumbled, spilling out onto a main road running along one of its sides.

Six of its eight battlements and three ramparts have been destroyed, some debris tumbling into the Neelum river.

The main gates to the heart of the fort are locked and in the chaos after the quake, no one knows who has the key, but nimble visitors can scramble up a pile of collapsed wall stones, squeeze along a ledge and enter along a rampart.

All of the fort's corners, where torches were once fixed to light it, have collapsed. What was once a stable where more than 100 horses were kept has been reduced to rubble where stray dogs roam.