Envelope with 'Quetta Earthquake Postage Free' stamp, 1935

From a letter sent by A R C Mott while serving with the Queen's Royal Regiment, 1935.

On 31 May 1935 an earthquake hit Quetta and the surrounding countryside in Baluchistan. It had a magnitude of 7.7 and somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 people died. Several British and Indian Army units took part in the efforts to rescue people from collapsed buildings, retrieve and bury corpses, assist refugees and prevent looting.

Quetta was a military headquarters of the British in Baluchistan and, from 1907, was the site of an Army Staff College.