Woman rescued 2 months after earthquake in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Dec. 13 Kyodo

A 40-year-old woman in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir was rescued Monday, more than two months after a powerful earthquake hit the country Oct. 8, officials said Tuesday.

Naqsha Bibi was rescued from under the debris of her house in Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir, the officials said.

The woman, who had remained buried under the debris, was unconscious but breathing when people in the Refugee Colony in Kamsar Chilabandi, 3 kilometers south of Muzaffarabad, were removing the debris for use in the reconstruction of a makeshift house, they said.

Hafeez ur-Rehman, doctor at a hospital run by an Islamic solidarity organization in the city, told private GEO TV that most of her muscles were not functioning when she was brought to the hospital but her organs were functional.

''She has received therapeutic treatment and is recovering. People are amazed at her survival, which is being described as a miracle,'' according to the television report.

She migrated to Muzaffarabad from the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir in 1990 and lived in one of the colonies set up for Kashmiri refugees in the city, the officials said.

The magnitude 7.6 earthquake, which jolted Azad Kashmir and northern Pakistan, has killed more than 73,000 people and rendered nearly 2.5 million people homeless, according to the government.

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