Casualties of the earthquake in Quetta in 1935

Photograph, Baluchistan, 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.

From a photograph album of 270 photographs compiled by Sergeant George Edward Davies, 2nd Battalion South Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Wales's Volunteers). Davies was later killed on 1 April 1945 whilst serving in Burma, and is buried in Taukkyan War Cemetery.