ISLAMABAD, Oct 8: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday announced Rs1 billion relief package for the victims of earthquake that jolted Islamabad, Rawalpindi, other parts of the country and Azad Kashmir on Saturday.

“I have already announced Rs1 billion package for the relief work,” he told journalists during his visit to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) on Saturday.

Friendly countries were sending assistance after the arrival of which the rescue work would gain further momentum, he added.

Mr Aziz described the earthquake as a great tragedy and said: “This is truly a testing time for the nation.” It would be too early to tell the exact death toll, he added and expressed the fear that it might be in thousands.

The government, the armed forces, police and NGOs were working in a coordinated way to rescue the victims, said the prime minister.

Describing Muzaffarabad as the worst hit area ‘where relief work will obviously take some time,’ he said the government had set up a temporary hospital there as the city’s Combined Military Hospital had collapsed.