A powerful earthquake yesterday struck a remote area of Afghanistan, shaking the capital, Kabul, and killing at least 24 people, while 76 were killed in Pakistan, officials said.
The death toll could climb in coming days because communications were down in much of the rugged Hindu Kush mountain range area where the quake was centered.
Reports of deaths had poured in from different areas of both nations by nightfall.
Photo: Reuters
In one of the worst incidents, at least 12 girls were killed in a stampede to get out of their school in the northeastern Afghan province of Takhar.
“They fell under the feet of other students,” said Abdul Razaq Zinda, provincial head of the Afghan National Disaster Management Agency.
Another 42 girls were taken to the hospital in the provincial capital of Taluqan.
Shockwaves were felt in northern India and in Pakistan, where hundreds of people ran out of buildings as the ground rolled beneath them.
“We were very scared ... We saw people leaving buildings, and we were remembering our God,” Pakistani journalist Zubair Khan said by telephone from the Swat Valley northwest of Islamabad.
The quake was 213km deep and centered 254km northeast of Kabul in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province.
The US Geological Survey initially measured the magnitude at 7.7 then revised it down to 7.5.
In Afghanistan, 24 people were reported dead, including the 12 schoolgirls, seven people in the eastern province of Nangarhar, two in Nuristan Province in the northeast and three in eastern Kunar Province, officials said.
Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah tweeted that the earthquake was the strongest felt in recent decades.
He said telecommunications have been disrupted in vast parts of the nation, preventing officials from getting a concise picture of damage and casualties.
In Pakistan, 38 deaths were reported by early evening, most in northern and northwestern regions bordering Afghanistan, officials said.
Particularly hard-hit was the northern province of Chitral, where 11 people were killed, police official Shah Jehan said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise because so many areas were cut off from communications.
The city of Peshawar had one death, but at least 150 injured people were being treated at the city’s main hospital, the provincial health chief said.
Additional reporting by AP
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