Uri, Oct. 10 (Reuters): Hours after Amina gave birth to a boy in Jammu and Kashmir, the world around her collapsed.

The weekend’s massive earthquake brought her brick house tumbling down in the remote Jabla village, trapping the mother and child in an eerie, cold darkness.

They were pulled out of the rubble after the boy’s father, Manzoor Ahmed Mir, and others spent 18 hours digging with bare hands.

Mir has now named his son Zalzala, or earthquake in Urdu. “It’s a blessing from Allah that they are alive. He brought the earthquake with him so I have named him Abid Zalzala,” said the 35-year-old farmer.

“Both the mother and child are healthy,” army doctor Rahul Kodgule said at a makeshift hospital in Uri, where they were taken after their miraculous rescue.

The two were being moved to a bigger army hospital in Srinagar.

A senior state official said today that the fate of about 10,000 people, living in remote areas on the border with Pakistan, was not yet known.

The epicentre of the quake was near Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Mir said his boy was born around 4 am on Saturday and in a little over five hours the region was rocked by the 7.6-magnitude quake.

“I was not at home when the earthquake struck. When I returned, my house was in rubble. I could hear my wife’s voice from below, calling out my name,” he said.

Mir ran around for help, collecting other villagers from houses scattered around the scenic mountain village.

After 18 hours of digging, the two were pulled out and taken to the army camp at Uri, said Mir, recalling the cold night he spent digging for a glimpse of his wife and newborn son.