MUZAFFARABAD, March 10, 2006: An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale jolted northern Pakistan on Friday, killing one person and injuring 22, officials said.

The quake was an aftershock of the massive Oct 8 South Asian temblor that killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan, seismological department chief Qamaruz Zaman told AFP.

Shocks were felt at 12:50pm in Jhelum and Lahore in Punjab and in the Mirpur in Azad Kashmir, Mr Zaman said, adding the epicentre was located between Jhelum and Mirpur.

One man died after a wall fell on top of him in Mirpur during the quake, the city’s deputy commissioner Ghulam Bashir Mughal told AFP.

“The victim was evacuated in time but he died of head injuries on the way to hospital,” Mughal said.

Twenty-two people received minor injuries in Mirpur amid widespread panic after the tremor, he said, including some who jumped out of windows.

Many buildings and structures were left unstable and susceptible to the more than 1,750 aftershocks that have shaken Pakistan since October’s 7.6-magnitude earthquake.

Among the injured in Mirpur were some refugees from Muzaffarabad who witnessed the devastation in October.

Zaman said occasional aftershocks would continue for another few weeks.

Meanwhile, more than 250 quake survivors left a tent camp in Muzaffarabad to return to their village homes on Friday, the first major batch to do so in the five months since the disaster, officials said.

The temblor displaced 3.5 million people in northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir.

The families returning home on Friday consisted of 251 people, 45 per cent of whom are women and children.—AFP