MUZAFFARABAD, Feb 20: A moderate earthquake on Friday hit parts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the NWFP and occupied Kashmir, leaving dozens of people injured, but there were no immediate reports of deaths.

In the AJK, at least nine people, most of them women or children, were injured in incidents of wall collapse after the quake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale jolted its northern parts, sending a wave of panic among residents, most of whom are yet to recover from the horrors of the devastating 2005 earthquake.

Several schoolchildren suffered bruises in a stampede as they rushed out of their classrooms out of fright. Almost all educational institutions were closed after the tremor.

In residential areas, people rushed out of their homes amid heavy downpour, crying and reciting holy verses.

“The jolt was so severe that we thought it’s going the replicate the devastation we saw four years ago,” said housewife Jamila, recalling the 2005 temblor which killed her 18-year old son.

There were no losses in urban areas, but in the village of Ghaipura, southeastern Leepa valley, three schoolchildren were injured when the wall of their school collapsed. A 30-year-old woman was injured in the valley’s Hoola village in a similar incident.

NWFP: Twenty students were injured when walls of three school buildings collapsed in the earthquake that jolted Abbottabad and other areas of the Hazara region.

District Coordination Officer Zaheerul Islam told Dawn that special teams had been dispatched to the affected area to assess losses.

Sources said the boundary walls of the primary schools in Yousafi Birot, Lahore Kass and Bisian fell on students, injuring 20 of them.

Agencies add: The Indian Meteorological Department said the 5.5 magnitude earthquake hit Baramullah, in occupied Kashmir, at 9:18am.

Officials said the quake caused panic, but no major damage.

“We have been collecting reports from the area. There is no report of death or major damage so far,” said Amir Ali, an official with the local disaster management committee in occupied Kashmir.

The quake was felt in Islamabad and Punjab too, said Fakhar Alam Khan, an official with Pakistan’s meteorological office.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage in Pakistan, he said, calling on people not to panic.